it starts again with the
search for adjectives
for example seedy sordid
squalid shitty
which collocate with a number
of nouns
for example the room with its
subterranean
daylight gloom even the cold felt filthy
the mattress with its atlas
of stains
of borders crossed into
another body
the shared toilet on the half
landing
the discomfiting comfort of the
warm cracked seat
an intimacy lost regained
pinching the skin
the familiar stink in your
nostrils
the one shared working shower
3 floors down
down the queasy creaking
stairs past the greasy
flaking walls an uneasy
cakewalk in a haunting
house to the spider of matted
pubic hair in the plughole
the shared DNA the shared host the guests
the landlord and the other mostly
unseen unseen to
bickering and barking ghosts lost souls
and the meanings touch and
diverge
dirty unpleasant lacking
moral hygenie
and in the in-between where the
assonance appeals
the surge of synonyms soiled
spoiled spilled
and shabby the sibilance of sleepless nights
the hissing vicissitudes of
verbs the ups and down
in the active and the passive appals
then the drunken indifference
of the weekend
pissed down the sink
the bravado the dissemblance
the doublethink
the essence of a
room a home a life grows dark
Imago feeds another 10p in
the meter the light flicks on
sharp as a knife the room reflected becomes a theatre
and in some stark present-future the forms unchanged
there’s another lonely actor
alone upon the stage
so far from Helsingør in 13
Denmark Terrace
“Berwick Court” etched on the
fanlight above the door
in a name a remembrance and a
performance
and the rest … “the rest is
silence”
