mine a fine line get
through
to
you
Your body spread out like the map
of a falcon in full-feathered-flight
wanting to be unicorn
one breath on your rook and you bucked
your tragus and you flew
I rode you halfway round the globe till I was saddle-sore
and never coming back
You scratched an outline on my bare back
your sword-pen-gun
blacked ink in my skin deep as melanin
you carved my back a gold frame
ornate with leaves
but left before you filled in the picture
so my back became the mirror mirror
on the shelf
you looked into its glass and saw yourself
in the future leaving
now I’m sitting here rekindling your memory
like an old flame
You backstabbed
but I healed scabbed
like an oil painting
now I’m reflecting
on this old gold ring
you left on my finger the day you left
With this ring
I opened your mind a book and read
in fine gold letters
Don’t touch my metal
déjà vu but the urge was too strong
I put my tongue to your lobe
and you bolted
leaving me singed the wild bird
who
flew
too
close to your fire and scorched her wings
Betrothed to a future perfect you
I read the minds of gold-studded unicorns
with fake horns who
see their fate framed in the fading blue-
black of my back
when I turn my back
on them
for not being you
Makar
Frankie Lynn
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
– Henry David Thoreau
To Denmark’s Freetown Christiania
my mind transports me when it’s overcast,
when there’s a thunderstorm or night draws near
I close my eyes: the heady hit of grass
from hash stalls; houses honed from wood and glass,
one flaking door, its mirrored hall, the spiral
staircase: on that battered sofa – Arild,
his purple dreads engrossed in his own story,
Arild, who flew too close to gold, dropped out
and landed here, the tumble-down, three-storey
Sesame House, home of the down, the out,
who come to learn how to survive without:
to make do, make things, make things up, to dare
to fabricate a castle out of air
under a master, aka The Artist,
whose learned thoughts flow deeper than a fjord
and made of Arild’s mind a palimpsest
on which he wrote three notes that formed a chord
till Arild knew the world within a word
and one long night, through spelling out a spell,
cobbled a cabin made of cockle shells
with seven caves, each cave singing the sea
and when the sun came up his cabin shone,
everyone marvelled at his sorcery;
but Freetown states you can’t create a home
without consent: a clash, and Arild’s gone,
squeezed out, forced out, pushed out down Pusher Street …
now here we meet him, crossing Princes Street,
Edinburgh: now an actor, single, shaved,
who slept on someone’s floor two years ago
till luck ran out; homeless: then one night caved
a home inside the Mound, its walls aglow
with books, books, books, except for one framed photo
where you’d expect a mirror: Hogmanay,
Deirdre and Angus on their wedding day,
his dearest friends: Angus, bleached blond, well-built;
Deirdre, brunette, petite; she made his outfit –
bubblewrap jacket, seersucker kilt
to match her jeans bejewelled with pomegranate
seeds, her bubble shoes the perfect fit:
made for each other – Deirdre wears the trousers,
Angus, the kilt – they’re solid, safe as houses
till late midsummer’s eve, Angus away
in England for a month, everyone high
on homebrew except Arild who today
must spell it out, confess to Deirdre why
it’s agony to look her in the eye
for every time he looks at her, he’s cursed,
must say those words a thousand times rehearsed:
I must make love to you. Two years he’s made
light of it, nothing of it, forged, invented
a virtue of necessity, betrayed
nothing, but love, drunk on itself, unwanted,
made a pass, yet Deirdre’s strong, undaunted:
I will, she laughs, if, for three weeks, my Danish
bookworm, you can make the Castle vanish;
not knowing at that instant Arild texts
The Artist in his hammock out in Freetown
who knows, this master artist-architect,
both how to build things up and pull things down;
how the right words, verb, adjective and noun,
in the right order, uttered in the air
can turn a sandstone castle to thin air
for the small sum of a thousand euros
which isn’t much when love feels more like death
so Arild learns the craft and each day grows
as well versed as the witches in Macbeth
predicting destiny with sound and breath,
till August brings the Festival: day one,
Edinburgh wakes to find her Castle gone!
Tourists, their eyes set on wide-angle lens:
actors drop fliers, workers, shoppers dazed;
Angus and Deirdre coming back from friends
stare at the huge blank empty space, amazed
that overnight, history’s been erased.
Throwaway sentence uttered on the solstice,
Deirdre chokes, remembering her promise.
I gave my word to Arild, she tells Angus
who pales and holds her hand to keep from shaking,
The Royal Mile indifferent to their anguish.
There’s no way out but take the road not taken –
if Arild knows the art of dark unmaking
what more can he unleash, unearth, undo:
Make love to him, but let your heart be true.
A stone’s throw from the Castle to the Mound,
each painful step as heavy as a stone
and each stone building weighted to the ground,
each cobbled wynd is whispering Run home!
A kiss, she takes the final steps alone,
her mind reverting to their wedding day,
that photograph. But now her lips are grey.
Arild, who caved a home inside the Mound,
is squatting deep inside its entrance, Arild,
who sees in Deirdre’s bearing how profound
true love can be; his monumental oral
feat has spelled out love’s double-headed arrow:
physical, headstrong, passionately selfish,
psychical, heartfelt, passionately selfless.
You’re both too good for me. Go back to him.
Arild is spent and yet he owes The Artist,
who, hearing of his pupil’s altruism,
cancels the debt. Now Arild knows that art is
the making of him: art is his catharsis,
through words, words, words, he’ll purge the pain, the doubt.
The cave erupts and pushes Arild out
to reinvent himself again, a makar:
to make a poem; hone it, room by room,
stanza by stanza; form, on one blank acre
from bricks and mortar, breath and metre, home;
to mount the spiral staircase of his poem,
take a battered volume off the shelf,
open a random page, and read himself …
STROOD
Reconstruction
Kiranjeet Singh
The ‘honour killer’, Gino De Luca, has today been convicted of manslaughter of his teenage daughter. Photographer De Luca, 44, was suffering from severe depression at the time of the killing. He beheaded his daughter, Virginia, 14, then delivered her severed head to alleged blackmailer, Tony ‘The Ape’ Ferarro, 37. Ferraro faces allegations of child abuse. De Luca will serve his 8-year sentence at a secure psychiatric hospital.
– The Echo, 20 June, 1984.
Had her dad’s red hair but wild as I
ragged it. snapped; she knew
how broke his lens , gave what
it wanted, game of he …
But he became . My Gino did
some shots for that , : had to.
, The Ape, Warholed his flat with young
redheads, call them his ‘girls’.
Had her headshot; wanted to her. He
in photos, lies, told Gino she had
no De Luca blood, his Achilles that.
My man lost Not his baby …
Not the I married in this photo
snapped on his way court, and
the headline, the
of it. My Gino only
said one word, Sorry, was his way,
to leave it He had to.
I couldn’t face him, or the I save
the papers I still see Virginia …
They said each time Gino faced the mirror, was
her pale face his eyes to …
Profit
Yves Depardon
Radix malorum est Cupiditas. Ad Thimotheum, 6°.
Ladies and Gents and Miscellaneous,
is how I start my Feel-Good talks, Tonight
my lecture is on Greed, yes, Avarice,
the deadliest of sins. I stand before you,
guru of Gordon Gekko, ‘Greed is Good’,
a liar, forger, thief: thigh-deep in sin.
Oh yes, I’ve had my innings and my outings –
more than once, I’ve peaked, top of the hit list
and lived. I’m vicious, too wicked to die.
You want to know the consequence of sinning?
Don’t ask a saint, O ladies, ask a sinner.
And then I cast my eye upon the crowd,
nodding my head as if remembering
a heinous deed for which I paid twice over.
And after this dramatic pause, my punchline:
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
A pinch of Latin to add gravitas:
Love of money is the root of evil.
Already, some are squirming in their seats
and one or two are weeping. I take pains
to look the part, my greying hair dyed yellow,
stringier than Stringfellow, greasy
and shoulder length. I dress androgynous,
a velvet robe, touch of the Vatican
but don’t mention the G word or the J word.
As for my voice, I camp it up an octave,
to freak old ladies out, and thrill the queens,
address my business partner as ‘my partner’
and roll my eyes a lot. They love the act.
You see this volume here? I hold it up,
You Wouldn’t Want to Go There: A Confession,
my life, my death in print. Read it to learn
how NOT to go to Heaven. Me, in hardback.
You won’t see me outside the pearly gates,
I’m going somewhere hot by Business Class –
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
It’s hot, hot-off-the-press, singed by the fires
of Hell, self-help with bells on. See this water?
Cloudy as a Welsh weekend, it’s blessed
with healing properties, the minerals
will cure all ills from asthma to depression.
Who’d like a sip? Take care, it’s medicine,
not Evian. You may be wondering
why I wear a diamanté wristband?
Crims Against Crime. Follow us on Facebook.
For a small sum, you too could raise awareness …
They lap it up: the dogdy rainwater
in bottles, and the sparkly rubber bands,
they’ve come to spend spend spend. When they’ve suspended
all disbelief, I raise my crystal glass:
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
And then I roll my eyes: ‘What shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole wide world, and
lose his own soul?’ Mark 8, verse 36.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I lost my soul!
It’s then I pause to drink the glass of claret
and eat some dry white bread. You want a story?
This is the tale I tell them: I grew up
somewhere not in London nor in Kent –
believe you me, you wouldn’t want to go there.
I formed a gang, we swore blood brotherhood,
shared the same scar, called ourselves The Lifers.
Just three of us, the twisted twins and me.
Handbags at first but then we graduated
to break-ins, made a thousand pounds a week,
not to mention all the benefits
under false identities. We spent it
on wine, women, William, as in Hill.
Oh, I could tell you, on St George’s Night
how we paid homage to the red, the white!
And how we swore allegiance, how we swore
‘Fuck this, screw you!’ until the air was blue
with uniforms, the rest of it’s a blur,
were in the local wine bar, when we heard
that Baz, a virgin member we were grooming
had been done over fatal by the rival
gang, The Deathwish, led by Death. We were
tooled up, our hand-cut suits lined thick with knives
and bored as hell. I smashed our empty bottle
of red against the bar, ‘Death, thou shalt die!’
and off we sped. We found this ancient geezer,
smelling of piss, face like a fist. I kicked him,
felled him like a deck of cards. ‘Fuck you!
Ain’t you lived long enough? Drop dead, you bastard!’
He turned his head to face me, ‘Go on, kill me!
I’m fucked, nothing but flesh and blood and skin.
At Death’s door. Death, you wanker, let me in!’
‘Where’s Death?’ I kick again, ‘Death,’ croaked the tramp,
‘condemned block. Number 4.’ And there we found him,
not Death, but something far more entertaining:
the suitcase, crammed with filthy dirty lucre.
Someone’s gold, someone who didn’t make it,
so hot it hurt our eyes to look at it.
‘Brothers,’ I cried, ‘this calls for celebration.
Champagne’s not good enough! Some Charlie Chaplin!’
And off I sped to get some choice white powder
from my associates, murderous arsenic.
You think I’d share my profit with those arselicks?
And back I sped to that dark place lit up
with all that glisters. There, the twins embraced me,
with grunts and grins and then the stranglehold
from one, and from the other, seven stab wounds!
They watched me bleed to death in that foul squat,
forming the arsenic into two fat lines
and me, I watched them snort like no tomorrow
and twist and writhe and die a young man’s death
before I fell into a ten-year coma.
The wages of sin are death. I flat-lined twice
and twice they called the priest. When I woke up,
the nurse looked shell-shocked, ancient, and addressed me
as Sir. I stretched my arms to yawn and noticed
my scar, raised, red. And then I spoke. My voice
raised like a preacher’s, organ, bass and brass:
Radix malorum est Cupiditas …
If people want to read the uncut version,
it’s in my book, You Wouldn’t Want to Go There.
Sold out. I have a few deluxe editions
at thirty pounds, each one signed by the master
of motivation, M, who wrote the foreword,
and me. I take all credit, debit cards.
Of course you may be steeped in avarice,
too miserly to part with such a sum?
Perhaps a wristband, sir? You look like you’re
in need of moral guidance. Go to hell?
Already been there, thank you. Water, madam?
You could drop dead tomorrow, there’s no future,
only now. It’s your life, make your choice.
Two for a fiver. Don’t all rush at once.
ROCHESTER
Things
Klaudia Schippmann
I don’t need love
For what good will love do me?
Diamonds never lie to me
For when love’s gone
They’ll lustre on
– ‘Diamonds are Forever’, Don Black
My wedding ring? I never take
it off. I once made the mistake,
and paid for it. The money stopped.
I took the bus and window shopped,
seeing in the window’s filth
the dull reflection of myself
till something caught my eye, a spark:
I stared stock-still till it grew dark –
a necklace with a ruby clasp,
if I could plunge my hand through glass …
Nothing else mattered. Hubby paid
to keep my name from the front page …
My wedding ring. Its antique gold
understatement leaves me cold,
its clean cut vowels that say, I’m rich.
I much prefer the nouveau riche,
stone-encrusted blatant bling
that sparks from my engagement ring,
such sparkling wit – such repartee,
these diamonds winking back at me –
this emerald-cut centre stone
takes centre stage at each At Home.
Let bling deliver blah de blah