Prised for my Device

Can I help - hey!

She gripped my hand fiercely but I clung on to my phone.

No! No! I won't let you. She attempted to prise it from my grasp.

She didn't speak but grappled with determination as I writhed and dipped.
I hoped she didn't have a weapon such as a cosh or a metal comb.

It's only worth a fiver. That was my catchphrase.

Then give! She hissed, continuing to prise.

To my dismay I was taken up by her leather jacket
and bleached blonde hair, although her face
was brittle and shiny as a lemon moon.

I turned my back to her but she wrapped her
rabbit arm around my neck, and I inhaled the leather.

Still I wouldn't submit.

You're. Not. Getting it. 

(It had all my bird photos on it.
Over 200 different species.)

Stop wriggling.

I was an accomplished wriggler. Had been all my life.

I lifted the phone high. Look the screen's cracked, it's years out of date.

A new tactic. She kneed me vigorously in the quadriceps.
It had been 40 years since subjected to a dead leg.

She was still prising. My eyes watered a little, I will admit.
But now it was time to activate frenzy mode. The haystack,
the tornado. It was going to get messy.

You. Will. Not. Take. Me.

The Engine

The instant she started tearing
gleefully at the wrapping
paper I knew I had made
a terrible mistake but it was too late now.

- I'm so sorry.
- What is this?

It was a big red model train.

- It's a big red model train. Can we pretend this never happened.
- Why would you give this to me on our anniversary?

She trembled with the insult, the assault.

- I don't know what I was thinking, I'm so ashamed.
- If you want to play with trains that's up to you.
- I think I may have to kill myself.
- Don't be flippant.
- I'm being completely serious.

(We would both be better off if I was dead.)

The big red train sat on the carpet.
It was bigger and redder than I remembered.
Twice as big. Twice as red.
And I didn't want to play with it.

"Ordinary people live thirty years back in a state of motivated somnambulism." - Marshall McLuhan

Metal Machine Music: The Anatomy of the Infinite Loop

1. A Glowing High-Frequency Sky

2. Overlapping Overtone "Ladders"

3. Acoustic Tremor and Phase Canyons

4. The High-Frequency Shift

Caroller at Mass (improv)

I was a perso at that point
not a coyote jack
hang wait on a min wait hang on
woo woo do you have hooves
don't come stomp in like that
we have stove to care fore
a pike and staff too less portent
still over the broom and never mind let's
recount three four five four you can
consider not you as a perso(n)
correct not correct

We've been through this, we are less
less than human thus less than humane
a critter substantially inhabiting the
confounded murky realm between
werewolf and vampire yet possessed
of entire diff genetic, don't worry
pretty so yr so-called head

One day soon don't laugh I/we/you will
fall in the water, not to break the ice
but because of matchstick century+++ leg###
century+++ leg### please read again
don't try to understand, and insult
or pretend of bone density for
the unborn, unforgiven, unbegotten

Drama? You like to raise drama now
sad point is we stuffed ancien dummies
are cellular incapable of revenge
stuck in centurial subspace
such then tech. escape hatch
plus then such oxygen deficit

The Gesture

As the end of my sessions drew near
it came into my head which I had learned
was poorly wired and liable to misfire
to present my patient
counsellor with a token of my gratitude 

For having listened to so many
weeks of my moaning and whining,
not to mention the groaning and wailing. 

Pressed for time I ducked into
the supermarket and grabbed the first substantial
item that manifested itself to me

Clutched it to my chest like a newborn
and hobbled along to the clinic.

And that is how I handed over
a 5kg sack of specialty potatoes

To Ms Piper while muttering my sweaty thanks
and suppressing the realisation I'd
neglected to pay for them.

She nodded and remarked that
across different cultures and historical eras,
the potato has shifted from an ancient agrarian deity
to a modern-day metaphor for quiet strength and grounding
and thus was an appropriate and touching gift 

Furthermore as a symbol of survival,
regeneration, and steadfast resilience
it signified that our work here was done.

Flaking Kingdom

I was at the loosest of ends
the people had voted for me to be
his official biographer
so that was how I ended up in his bedroom
the creaking zone

Walls stained with
scribblings none could decipher
daubed in crayon or soup while
bulbs swung bare from leather cords

His modest residence occupied and undecorated
for 25 years. The neighbours say he kept
himself to himself but reported
wives numbers one and two were really quite chatty

He himself sat smoking in the garden, hunched
over and hammering at a typewriter at all hours
while his cats prowled and brought tributes

Did you have a serving hatch

Yes we had a serving hatch
a hole in the wall between kitchen and dining room
for effective meal delivery, a
portal architecturally
known as a passthrough 

Great fun to climb through as a child
and maybe once as a bored adult when
no one was home

See also climbing over the baluster at the top of the stairs
and jumping down to the landing without bashing your head against
the wall or breaking an ankle
you had to make your own entertainment

But to return to the serving hatch
a feature particularly associated with the 1970s
along with the hostess trolley

Ours didn't have windows
or doors you could close
so when I was making
coffee in the kitchen that morning
I couldn't help but see
the shape
of the body
of my father
through the hatch
in the hospital bed
in the back room
where he spent his final night

Yes we had a serving hatch