Repossessed
A doll’s house on the street of my mind, its tiny curtains drawn, the rooms dark and dusty, the finger-sized furniture tipped over after what appears to have been a drunken rage. And with no sign of its glassine-eyed occupants, the little back door kicked in, or nudged by a mouse, the fourth wall missing in this theatre-of-play, revealing a family’s unspeakable secrets. And in its homey plastic kitchen, a wisp of smoke. A fire coming. A cleansing...
Read MoreImagine That
I’ve imagined all this, one reality as real as any other. I’ve been strolling in the mind’s bestiary, thoughtfulness sawing its green lumber. I’m on a newly discovered planet. I’m a simile or silly allegory. A gargoyle in a cathedral. A fist through a pane of tinted glass. Already I’ve died a thousand nights and have crowned myself king of the gnats. In my mind is a creamer of magical water. I’ve put myself before all others. Why write of the real world, its stems and stoves and fishes? When I can live on the sun instead and carry cities in my bloodstream. I can...
Read MoreHouse to House
A salesman going door to door, selling bottled rain and sniffed fingers, selling angel-scented handkerchiefs. A salesman in an ill-fitting suit, selling love-powder and paper aqualungs. Broken manhole covers. A dent in a bucket. Bio-degradable motion detectors. The uninvited, leaning on your front door’s bell, hauling a black satchel, carrying snake-hips and vapourous handles. Hair dye for the dead. A swastika of smoking ashes. Who’s selling two absolutes for a dollar, the semi-divine, and storm windows too – lest yon tempest offend...
Read MoreShopping
A nickel’s worth of starshine please, porter, and make it snappy A pound of roses for m’lady’s hair. A half-case of chewed-over indecision. I prefer shopping via wistful teleportation. I like it when the stores are closed, the window-dresser in the arms of dreaming, the security guard asleep in his chair. It’s midnight, ghost-shoppers pressing their faces up against the glass, in the thrall of wish-fulfillment. Need and want fight it out in aisle nine. The spirit of greed is rifling the coffers; the least predictable of bargain-hunters. Here’s a toy for your unborn children. Warm...
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