The note on the desk read

'Max Payne interiors'
as if my sunlit doppelganger had the
faintest idea what is meant by that

My investigations reveal there is a Max Payne
third-person shooter which has
'one of the bleakest settings in gaming history'

Now I'm not a gamer but this gritty,
noir-inspired aesthetic, featuring dark, dilapidated,
and claustrophobic spaces which mirror the protagonist's
despair and the city's decay was
instantly recognisable to me

And yes the subway, the hotel, the drug den
with their sparse lighting, worn textures, and
often filthy environments are
the ideal locations for my own
gritty, revenge-driven storyline about
a man on the edge, fighting to clear his name
while struggling to uncover
the truth about his slain family - it all added up

You're in a computer game, Max.

The new Catweazle

I saw a wizard by the ancient River Effra
    (a former stream or small river in south London
     now culverted for most of its course)
while on a mission of my own
which involved... never you mind

Bearded, lanky and ancient (at least 50)
he sported a red cape, a golden crown
of cardboard and he possessed a staff
with which he commanded a plastic bottle
to levitate, assisted by much profanity
and a wild waving of every available limb

His Sunday conjuring attracted some
spectators crossing the Vauxhall Bridge
whose applause appeared to
disgust him, he needed the
approval of no one, NO ONE! 

Asbestos roof, rusting

The old rental and its weed garden
ever unmown and thistled but the worse
the worst was the garage door
with its marginally but reliably
expanding peephole paint peeling
we really should one day patch it up
but never did of course and so the flaking
spread the gap increased no car inside
just a collection of chipped and
unholy toilet seats not exactly
a vintage collection also
dangling visible through the gape
a mirrorball in the form of
an oversized basketball

Transitional, healing

You (affectionately) mock my admiration
for certain stylish bridges
from the whimsical to the brutalist 

Consider: The Bridge as a Symbol of Internal Integration

Riga, Latvia had a succession of beauties which
sent me into rhapsodies you found bewildering

Vientiane where I lost my mind on the giddy crossing
as you nearly lost your footing

Consider: the irrational third element resolving
an unconscious tension between opposing forces

Gazing along the Thames from certain vantage points
may be a minor healing process, a
grouping of history and memory

Consider: jumping off one - no
let us not be flippant, let us recall
connections we have made, and bridges
we have traversed 

From Salford to the Florida Keys
the accidental glories of my travels
from Newcastle to Nashville, groping
blindly in search of
the transcendent function

The boy in seat 13A

Has a Spider Man hoodie
over a Pokemon sweatshirt
and a face like a peeled peach

As we land he bounces up and down
yelling DOTCOM DOTCOM

His little brother joins in
DOC TOM DOC TOM
which is clearly wrong and he is
enthusiastically corrected

Dinner for 13.5

The half gnaws on the clock
pots sweat / numbers slip
    salt = static
steam counts itself wrong
someone keeps multiplying

No cutlery
only relics
forks dreaming of mouths
spoons bent into questions
    knife = mirror = no

Are these my people
or just noise wearing shoes
the chairs say nothing
the table refuses eye contact

The word 'corridor'
    -rig the alarm-

Faces pixelate
colleagues go flat, play beige
knowledge is contraband
swallow syllables whole
while choking politely

Red red rocks glow like
rules without verbs, as
heat hums my employee ID
there's no way around

Clambering over the rosy blocks
hands full of dinner
feet full of doubt
    skin learns heat
    numbers peel
thirteen and a half step
falls through the cracks

Applause from nowhere
applause from below
    later ≠ later
cutlery rattling its hollow bones
you set the table
upside down

And mispronounced the word 'corridor'
    on purpose

In the current climate crisis

And lacking an aircraft, I draw the courage
to breathe underwater. Send helpless
air bubble messages
fizzing to the surface

Where they fail to catch the dewdrop
and do nothing to aid
the reflection of the cosmos

Better to become
an eel or a snake, afloat absurd
and redundant. 

cf. Roberto Bolaño & Harry Martinson