Out-takes (Poetry)
04th August 2006
Done with a sense of urgency, focus fuzzy - zoom in again, zoom out -
dozens of lipsticks, slick, metallic, two-inch tubes,
silver, gold-tone, thrown into a suitcase. Or were they shells -
bullets smoothly rounded, glinting as the lid slammed shut?
Exodus - leaving somewhere for somewhere else - a foreign location,
crossing empty landscapes teased open to indifferent skies, treeless.
And always the fear of pursuit, the surge of silence galloping behind.
There are others - extras without names - refugees clutching luggage,
anxious as they trudge, beyond talking, eyes fixed on the horizon,
making slow progress as numbers drop - a thinning out,
claimed by predators, their fate unseen.
A hillside carved with terraces makes all routes parrallel,
separated by fields of stunted crops where figures (a few not yet picked off)
still struggle at the corner of my eye. Just one companion close
but too large, too loud, though fitter than the rest
and dressed in vivid colours - hippyish -
his voice goading, his crushed velvet coat red-purple as a wound.
Fade. Cut to a church, familiar, strange - a mix of known and unknown.
I slide, alone, through the front door and curtsey deep, on cue.
My mother's somewhere, looking on, the movie's started
and the screen is vast, replacing altar and stained glass,
stretching floor to vaulted dim and gothic roof.
The pews are crammed, huge faces loom - I think it's Bogie and Bacall -
spools whirl, there's a flickering: the celluloid is flawed.
Afterwards, another scene that isn't home - rooms, small
claustrophobic dolls' house squares, and I'm Alice grown too big
in dreams to fit through doors, too large to hide myself away.
Outside's a jungle, dazzlingly green but sinister - the lake's a mat of weed,
a cat all shapes and shadows, mottled, dark, springs up with jaws agape,
his tongue a gash of pink-meat rawness, wet with appetite.
Drums roll, and like a heroine besieged by devils in the blackest of black plots,
the sound track shakes with terror as I thrust a broken branch, end-on,
way down his throat. The blood and agonising thrash of limbs
brings guilt and pity welling past the shock. Sorrow fills death's sudden gap -
(who was it left a map beneath my pillow while I slept?) -
fake bullets melt and stars dissolve in rain.
dozens of lipsticks, slick, metallic, two-inch tubes,
silver, gold-tone, thrown into a suitcase. Or were they shells -
bullets smoothly rounded, glinting as the lid slammed shut?
Exodus - leaving somewhere for somewhere else - a foreign location,
crossing empty landscapes teased open to indifferent skies, treeless.
And always the fear of pursuit, the surge of silence galloping behind.
There are others - extras without names - refugees clutching luggage,
anxious as they trudge, beyond talking, eyes fixed on the horizon,
making slow progress as numbers drop - a thinning out,
claimed by predators, their fate unseen.
A hillside carved with terraces makes all routes parrallel,
separated by fields of stunted crops where figures (a few not yet picked off)
still struggle at the corner of my eye. Just one companion close
but too large, too loud, though fitter than the rest
and dressed in vivid colours - hippyish -
his voice goading, his crushed velvet coat red-purple as a wound.
Fade. Cut to a church, familiar, strange - a mix of known and unknown.
I slide, alone, through the front door and curtsey deep, on cue.
My mother's somewhere, looking on, the movie's started
and the screen is vast, replacing altar and stained glass,
stretching floor to vaulted dim and gothic roof.
The pews are crammed, huge faces loom - I think it's Bogie and Bacall -
spools whirl, there's a flickering: the celluloid is flawed.
Afterwards, another scene that isn't home - rooms, small
claustrophobic dolls' house squares, and I'm Alice grown too big
in dreams to fit through doors, too large to hide myself away.
Outside's a jungle, dazzlingly green but sinister - the lake's a mat of weed,
a cat all shapes and shadows, mottled, dark, springs up with jaws agape,
his tongue a gash of pink-meat rawness, wet with appetite.
Drums roll, and like a heroine besieged by devils in the blackest of black plots,
the sound track shakes with terror as I thrust a broken branch, end-on,
way down his throat. The blood and agonising thrash of limbs
brings guilt and pity welling past the shock. Sorrow fills death's sudden gap -
(who was it left a map beneath my pillow while I slept?) -
fake bullets melt and stars dissolve in rain.