Puppet show

A flickering jester scampers on stage, fading away before the music starts; a spectral symphony of tiny footsteps and rustling, worn-out dresses, followed by pantomime clapping and distant cheers. The flesh puppet’s writhing dance is the main attraction.  Shrill voices fill the air. Dance, they scream. Slave to its strings – invisible intruders inexorably enforcing their will – the puppet snaps awake. It moves in jerks and jolts and clumsy pirouettes. Falling to its knees, it claws at the space where its eyes should be. The audience’s reaction is deafening; a delirious laugh track. The faceless plaything curls up into a foetal position as smoky tendrils wisp across the ceiling and tongues of flame lick the walls casting a violent shadow-play on the falling curtains and the crumbling pillars and the roof caving in on the crowd that roars with laughter to the end.

  

Tomorrow, a new wave of curious patrons will face the restored stage, lured by promises of transgression and eager to experience all the notorious play has to offer. They will not be disappointed.  

Kelly

Her name is Kelly.

She’s brighter than the sun.

She’s my radioactive jellyfish; we’re having so much fun.

If you see Kelly,

Then you had better run.

She’ll zap you with her sparkly thoughts and make sure you’re undone.

Once

I’m swimming, breathless, in your river

It gets me where I want to go

I’m dancing, reckless, struck with fever

I’m feeling more than I can show.

The cities echo with your laughter

They’re filled with glimpses of your grace

Our shadows know just what we’re after

They’re locked in secret, warm embrace.

Cyborg Queen

Her hair’s a mass of tangled wire

Her eyes a flash of bright green fire

She sits atop a crumbling spire
The humming crowds all fear her ire.

 

Her crackling voice is rising higher

In static sighs of cold desire

Her neon lies are hollow, dire

Since all that’s left will soon expire.

Downtown

When you are lost and shadows whisper your name

Then you can always go

Downtown.

When cyborg swarms are tracing your every step

Then you can always go

Downtown.

Just listen to the giant ants as they shift their antennas.

Just try and hide from all those packs of rabid, starved hyenas.

Forget your blues.

The waves are much stronger here.

You can burn all your clothes and lose all your hair, so go

Downtown.

You’ll get a break when you’re

Downtown

From radioactive war

Downtown

Release is waiting for you.

Dinner is served

Plump and strong, shiny and new, the baby takes its first reluctant step on the table, reaching for the bowl of glistening grapes. Its feet wobble and it falls on all fours. Twisting its tiny features into an expression of focused determination, it takes long, hard looks at each limb. With pearls of sweat on its wrinkled forehead and constantly moving lips, it looks up and lifts its frame on trembling knees. The baby’s on its way! Growing more and more confident, it finally reaches its prize. Greedily, it stuffs its mouth with fruit and lies on its back, cooing and giggling. It lies there, content with its hard-earned victory.

  

As its eyes start to glaze over, the baby turns its attention to its audience: their pale, stretched faces barely visible beneath their black cowls; their eyes slow-burning flickers of amber; their tongues gently lashing through the air; their twisted claws smoothly scratching the surface of the table. They wait.

   

The baby sleeps.

   

Dinner is served.   

Almost There

  Frozen sunset.

 

  Suspended seagulls.

 

  Trees with sky-piercing tops.

  Dead birds hanging from branches.

 

  One long shuffle after the other.

 

  Shifting shapes in the distance.

 

  She laughs through his gritting teeth.

 

  She laughs through the gravel’s grind beneath his feet.

 

  Laughter becomes static, static becomes pain.

  Familiar whispers, close as peril.

  Fingers down his spine.

  Almost there.

Self-referential ode to incompetence (oh-so-clever-oh-oh-yes)

The author stares at the jumbled, garbled, wordy mess, nurturing his baby blister blues. The gaps in-between words multiply at an alarming rate, soundless and vile. His made-up poetic magnificence awkwardly clashes with the stark reality of the volatile and vicious vortex of trivial tautologies and banal revelations flashing on-screen. Hyphenated horrors, jittery beyond compare, force his body to revel in rebellious revulsion. Lost in bleak bleary-eyed bouts of self-deprecation, he fancies himself a sky shark wrapped in rainbows. His fingers are out of focus, a blurry mess, burning butterflies breathing their last off-screen. His jokes are wearing thin but his laughter never stops. Smugly whispering of dark things in broad daylight, he traces the cracks in the ceiling with half-shut eyes.

  

Outside, volcanoes boil and burst in engulfing flame and snowdrops twirl and bright leaves swirl and comets shine and lovers die and dance and die and paths are carved in soft stone ground and wars are fought and forgotten and moonlit waves erupt and disrupt the silence and guitars are smashed against the stage and blood drips from open wounds and children learn their first goodbyes and wolves dream of spacemen swimming through starless skies and the sun dries tears and quiets fears and all is lost and all is well. Inside, incomprehensibly incompetent, the author pens his last line.                                    

Oh-so clever-oh-oh-yes!