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Small Tower 1
Rupert Loydell
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1. Under Construction
The neighbours enjoyed insulting me.
The strange camber of the road ensuring that - on turning - it proved
impossible to see who my interlocutor was.
The voices varied.
Fruity choirmaster come human rights' lawyer come chigger rapper come phlegm
inflected Scot come lisping boy-poet come film trailer gravel-tone come
hysterical Eurocrat come ex-junkie authentic come fat cunt in Subway come
weeping Welsh Nationalist.
Some of their claims were true.
I'd masturbated in socks, run over a horse, worked as a wheel clamper.
Many were false and less colourful.
But when the assaults turned physical, I took more interest.
I was quite literally chased by a mobility scooter, chipping my heels. The
day I paraded my new leisure suit.
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Small Tower 3
Rupert Loydell
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2. Long-term Resident
Almost never do I worry about politics.
I have to say though, my latent concerns have recently transmuted into bitter
fears - even outright hatreds.
A local council apparatchik makes contact to inform that my body, all pale
and trembling, is to be sliced into nanometre sections, whilst on rotating
display in a local kebab emporium.
Apparently my Islamic neighbours have espied me weeding, and so established
that my godly frame is thus suitable.
Various sensitivities preclude the normal appeal process from applying.
In short, I am kippered.
Or - more accurately - skewered.
In concert with this act of medieval barbarism, my entire worldly goods and
estate are to be distributed - near gratis - at the Finmere car-boot sale.
God have mercy on my dispersed being.
Polyphony:
I welcome the sound of jabbering Slav on mobile phone
and on every bus a lone man engaging the driver in desultory chat (re: route
changes and road-works).
So sudden the swings into our medieval streets -
noisome the smells of cushion and old fat.
Transliteration:
Public transport as the movement of rage,
down or round or up, but nearly always
the sound of foreigners on mobile phones.
At first I enjoyed guessing the language,
now I curse and assume credit card fraud
or trafficking in dishevelled women.
I don't feel guilt - but pity bus drivers,
as they chart social decay and plan their
revenge in tussles over awkward change.
Pointless to write about, without a doubt;
repulsive sentiments to the school of
permitted reactions. But fuck all them.
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Small Tower 12
Rupert Loydell
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3. Last Words
Sitting here, the dark river rolling past;
drinking Cahors red, cursing poetry.
Deadliest of all art forms. Practised by
Urban arrivistes.
Lyrical deadweights.
Collaging kleptomaniacs.
Bollock sniffers.
Experimental typographers.
Revisionists of resentments.
Thyrotoxic sales assistants.
Epiphanic self-combusters.
Local drunks roaring on the other bank.
Catcalls and urgent whoops to the new moon.
Walking the streets each evening, lonely
at first but then the feeling of release.
Never to repeat.
© Paul Sutton 2012
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