A cactus sits within an intricately decorated pot,
Alone on the windowsill,
Un-noticed as the door closes again.
The early-evening sun plays on his face,
Masked by a glistening beard,
Washed by tears.
Sat, back toward breakwater awash with moss,
Throwing stones to make waves.
Yet she’s stood.
Facing out at the window pane,
Eyes crossing paths with the sun, producing
The shadow of a flower on
Collar bones to break a hundred hearts.
A.T.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Friday, 2 April 2010
The Human Problem
One day the last person in the world rang her up and said it's time to deal with the human problem. She let her mouth open at the experience of the external voice, no more the vibrating rise out of her belly and throat but the sounding out of another.
It was then she drew several leaves with her black marker pen out of nervous procrastination all over the tablecloth. It took her a series of crated days to respond, and when she did so, the hour found her withdrawn and ill.
Coming over sloping greens outside sun-beaten business schools teaching the post-crunch methods, already drunk two cans of ginger beer, she hesitated by the ice cream kiosk and observed the dusty Italian with the dripping Jewish nose serving choate children two 99's costing £3 each, melting chocolate sauce creeping onto their baby lamb fingers and getting everywhere.
She wouldn't let it be dealt with, not by him, whom upon reflection she now regarded servile and pernicious.
Next day he rings again and they talk, but not about the pressing issue. They have tea over the phone, she studies a photo of Dennis Wilson as they talk and fantasizes the voice belongs to it. They go onto nature, public and private, as breath becomes more and more casual, and she's onto pouring boiling water into her third cup of now tasteless tea; she doesn't even know the shape of his mouth, or even the height of the man!
And on their fifth conversation he tells her again that it's time to deal with the human problem. Of all the words she may have responded with, of every word in English, French and the languages of Southern America, she could only articulate the quiet puff of two lips sealed very shut for a long time as they open suddenly, dry and cracking.
o.w.
It was then she drew several leaves with her black marker pen out of nervous procrastination all over the tablecloth. It took her a series of crated days to respond, and when she did so, the hour found her withdrawn and ill.
Coming over sloping greens outside sun-beaten business schools teaching the post-crunch methods, already drunk two cans of ginger beer, she hesitated by the ice cream kiosk and observed the dusty Italian with the dripping Jewish nose serving choate children two 99's costing £3 each, melting chocolate sauce creeping onto their baby lamb fingers and getting everywhere.
She wouldn't let it be dealt with, not by him, whom upon reflection she now regarded servile and pernicious.
Next day he rings again and they talk, but not about the pressing issue. They have tea over the phone, she studies a photo of Dennis Wilson as they talk and fantasizes the voice belongs to it. They go onto nature, public and private, as breath becomes more and more casual, and she's onto pouring boiling water into her third cup of now tasteless tea; she doesn't even know the shape of his mouth, or even the height of the man!
And on their fifth conversation he tells her again that it's time to deal with the human problem. Of all the words she may have responded with, of every word in English, French and the languages of Southern America, she could only articulate the quiet puff of two lips sealed very shut for a long time as they open suddenly, dry and cracking.
o.w.
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