“Is
this it, god?” he asked No
answer that's answer enough
Picking
a cigarette from behind his ear looking down Teflon street
Earlier
he said “I think I’ll stick around” But
since then he’d slipped into doubt
Littering
the pavement with cigarette stubs and
regret
Euthanizing
new born ideas to save them from a world
Of
incredible mad men and
flaccid stagnant sages
Who
would molest the shivering children of missionaries
As
they clung to the eaves of a shell shocked city Fishing
for meals of lungs and kidneys from kitchens Along Rat boulevard from inside the chimneys of sewers or when offered In the music boxes of awkward strangers
With
skin disorders and heart pump attendants
The
music of his own childhood lay drunk in the gutter He only stopped to listen once
By
the record store which had been boarded up and seamed,
deaf, unintelligent
The
dead friend who busked on this corner had asked If
he would play violin at the funeral He
had promised but forgotten
Things
didn’t seem to be worth remembering anymore
Perhaps
he’d keep an eye fixed firmly on the needle in his arm
And
learn to ask the right questions “Careful
they might be listening”
“Who
said that?” “I
did”
He
put a hand to his temples and felt the unease
Of seven
days on the road And eating
leftovers out of bowls fashioned from dead wood The
road left him standing on a strangely familiar corner
It
continued, nonetheless, its journey towards the abortion clinic
Where
babies were borne everyday And
interns would lose their lunches and minds
Vomiting
in the alley behind the primary school
On
his corner the old conjurer gestured with a pleading smile Inviting him into a smouldering bath
house for the evening matinee Instead
He
scowled and skewered the lock into his house
politely ignoring the old man
And
sat practising politics with his inanimate imagination
Picking
at the last cigarette behind his awe-full ear Tracing
the puncture marks
Between
his wrist and elbow along make-believe cuts Wrapping
the entrails of the day around a crucifix He had stolen from an anonymous bus
seat somewhere between
Consciousness
and a faraway destination
The
telephone jabbed his ear knocking a cigarette off .She was on the other side screaming at him “How could you see something happen and do
nothing!”
As
he reached to where the cigarette had rolled under the tea coloured coffee
table
He
could only presume the suicidal girl had died and there was no use in this
conversation
He
lit the cigarette and looked out his window
Cold
with a fever and malcontent
Pissing
into a bottle beside his bed he fell over deadened by having
to wake up the next day and do it all over again
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