The Haste of Yellow

Summer took the first bite.

I recline, a bruised mushroom

Peeling shamelessly in this musty kiln 

Of faceless wasps. I threaten to explode.

To inflate to the size of a Roman God, all red-eyed

With the sale of Pompeii; but the bite was non-committal,

So I retreat. 

Again.

Only half-awake 

As It bloats recklessly along the suburban midriff, 

Arms clouding a malarial sun that buzzes with the epileptic frenzy

Of a light-drunk cicada. 

It’s always been like this, 
Us sitting eye to eye, 

As ugly as the other and skinless in a souring garden

Where the day is a butterfly-eater
And August is a hallucinogenic rash
That paws at the inchoate peace we've built
On dust caught out by prying sun-threads. 

We have a difference of opinion you see;

I wear my religion like a hand-plucked sheepskin, 

While it prefers to keep its in a loose jar that tolls

On the hour. We’ve come to an agreement of sorts... now.

But I dare not sleep, for once a year Winter feeds 

Its securities into the mouth of this obese child of heat

And it once again dips its toes into the unchartered waters of 

Our contested sovereignty. 

One simply cannot underestimate the haste of Yellow.

See how it stalks the scrawny tide-turners as they drag

Their little pieces of sea across the land. 

See how it disorientates the lowly fireflies as they impersonate stars 

Around old whisky bottles. And see how it scratches

At my nuclear skyline of half-eaten curtains 

And vacant window-lickers. 

This will not do, this flailing treaty of disarmament.

I will raise an army - exonerate the dissidents, and mobilise 

The curious little bone colonies that live like overfed lichen,

Gnawing on the shallow warmth of 

A noxious rockery. Have you heard them? 

That despondent rustle of 

rock         upon         rock 

In earthy mimicry. They know too well the 

Realities of a world where you learn to cry

Before you talk.

Then we will rally, 

A chain-smoking march of the Empties, 

Arm in arm and sewn together as we scale the shoulder-blades

Of a foreign mountain and take Summer while it sleeps. 

And then I will turn on them

Where all can see

And gobble them up 

one 

by 

one.

For this is a one thing.

We are a one thing. It is I, and I alone 

Who will raise this kingdom of white noise

And compulsory sedation. Who will reinstate a monopoly of grey

And paint a night that cloys like toffee.

For grey sets the scene for a most panoptic introspection, 

And I’m afraid our displacement is far more guaranteed than I’d hoped.