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The Dummy Thing My rundown wife interrupts this
poem to ask if we are watching the film
tonight and I growl Can't you see I am writing a
fucking poem? Jesus! and she says SORRY
and I ask how I'm supposed to write about my gambling
addiction if she's going to make me feel guilty about a
stupid film as well and she wails like a little girl
I SAID I'M SORRY! and runs into the bedroom
slamming the door waking our baby daughter after
we've just spent an hour trying to get her to
sleep and I sit here on fire wondering if I should be the one
to get up and do the dummy thing or if my wife is
going to get up and do the dummy thing or will
she sulk for a while waiting for me to apologise for
being such a bastard but then she drifts out of the
cold bedroom soothes our daughter back to
sleep and creeps into the living room to haunt me
beside my writing desk as I spit a lump of Nicotine gum
into the dust beneath my desk lamp and begin with that
crazy old bitch on the next machine rubbing the
screen begging for sevens as a bright blue slot
sucks our money away and the arcade manager brings me
crap coffee in a dirty white mug and ten pounds worth
of brass loyalty tokens. Impression I do my praying in bathrooms, a
(clean)(dirty) white place. My beard is itchy. Repeating the names of people
who keep me alive regulates my breathing. Kneeling on a damp rug, forehead
balanced on the edge of the sink, taps running like childish fear;
please: it's colder now and I need to know. Nicotine gum under my tongue is
the science teacher who hated me. Friction burns around my dick, a
rash of worn out fantasies. Angry at myself for being angry
is a word I can't pronounce. What's the point in asking God to keep my
reckless friend alive if, after discharging herself from hospital, she's going to
drink red wine on top of the medication? A green leaflet in the waiting
room tells me, "Take a moment every day to admire the beauty around
you.'' and there's a picture of an old couple on a park bench smiling up at a
tree. The junkie opposite us butters the knees of his tracksuit
bottoms with his slimy fingers. A bleeding girl burps. What is this life and how are we
supposed to fit it onto the bookshelf? Our doctor calls us in and,
shivering under photos of his perfect family, my wife plugs her guitar into my
belly button as I do the Howlin' Wolf. Sketch His voice, a burning cigarette lost in their bed sheets.
He turns her name into a Ferris wheel. My dreams are full of sex. In my dreams I'll fuck anyone. People with skin like plastic
bags washed up on Blackpool beach. Eyes that remind me to brush my
teeth. You get the picture. But my friend, in the back of
the car whispering Paris to his girlfriend, he's cool as a dealer's heart
and will never know, will never, never, never be me and that's what I was
thinking while everybody else discussed their
favourite novel, bright lights unravelling
country lanes and fog ahead of us all the way. Autopsy-turvy Dreamed I was the unhinged surgeon huffing laughing gas. That horrible bastard cold on my table in the basement, fluorescent light flickering. A party upstairs. Clink of glasses. Laughter. A row of shiny sharp things
singing to me. His heart looked like 100
cigarette butts stapled to a Gremlin. WARNING! Flammable blood. Sewer scum brain scooped out and slam-dunked into a bin full of half-eaten
Big Macs. Other organs (fed to wild cats
out back) replaced with vampire bats. Face cut off and glued to a
football. Eyes and tongue for Cheech the
lab dog. Stuffed the skull with pictures
of Jesus and letters you wrote begging
for his addictions to disappear like a rival gangster or phantom
pregnancy. I woke up sweaty and went for a piss in a
daze, my therapist's mantra with a
splash of cold water to bring me home. Then I put myself back together and dropped a kiss on you before the light came. Poetry Girl If you could rise from a pile of
grave dirt by my side of the bed and get mixed up in my pubes it would keep me from
obsessively touching the wound on our hallway
Christ. I'm sick of closing doors with my left foot and turning
around three times because I'm crazy and it's been too long since the blood rollercoaster exhilarated me. © Bobby Parker 2011 |