Sunday 18 May 2014

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.