board game

 

board game – in mitigation (from the trial)

exhibit 14

 

he can’t get inside this family

he doesn’t remember which piece he is

he can see the idea of it but not quite how it fits together

he used to be son   James   and there was mother and father

and the pieces moved to the rolls of their dice

and the game moved along nicely everyone passing go

but on the side they were John and Mary living outside the game

alter egos stepping in and out which seemed against the rules

the top hat after all was the top hat and he was the racing car

 

and then he began to become Jimmy or Jim when he left the house

or even the room they were in    James was good at school   Jimmy smoked weed

and Jim put his hand down Susan Smith’s knickers   John went to work but Johnny

played the guitar alone in the bedroom had a stack of porn under the bed

Mary cooked up three a day   yummy   dozed on the sofa in the slow afternoons 

was a whizz at bingo longing for the snowball a purse full of change for the fruit machine 

the one-armed bandit payout what a wheeze   JamesJimmyJim counting coins   comes on 

his tummy   lies still  steals close to mummy   stares at the ceiling notes a sense a fear of the 

failing of a fix   the loaded dice rolling to a six

 

the car skidding out of control   going over the edge   falling   just a few feet not far   into a 

ditch

the engine running turning over   then stalling   the foot slowly   uselessly   releasing the 

clutch

verdict

verdict  (from the trial)

exhibit 10

all rise   standing against a wall

while the jury look away

or at their blank hands recoil

the sun coming up behind the trees

and the light just so just for that moment

and you know it will pass   seconds

less than minutes   an age

not a lifetime but a life parsed   punctuated

the gavel knocking thin nails of silence into the pinned

paper heart delivering the coup de grâce

sentence

sentence  (from the trial)

exhibit 9

to wake each day and believe its possibilities

a ship slipping its anchor to drift on uncharted seas

or to those mapped and hoped for destinies

not to who or what or where you are    on your knees

 

to know that the past would always be invited to parties

guests and ghosts gatecrashers with invitations in their pockets

a lock of hair a forgotten photograph memories hung in lockets

on rusty golden chains of futures around their necks    of certainties

 

to be yourself   sure, as many epiphanies

as you can take   but a life sentence in the cell of yourself

no remission no parole   enjoy the walls the ceiling

the floor the flaws   and the window that square of sky   a jar from which the light pours 

conspire

 

conspire (from the trial)

exhibit 8

upstairs

                I’ve been upstairs climbing

it’s always uphill through locked doors

through the hatch into that cluttered space

that shipwreck of our scuppered lives

a deep-sea diver in murky depths

fed on recycled oxygen shallow breaths

sorting out the past that didn’t pass go    the zero-

sum games and me the boot the black shoe

finding missing pieces that do not fit the puzzles

we put together nostalgia wrapped

in webs and dust the air thin and thick

with motes unsung notes from our songs   nuzzled

by polypoid fingers   the rich and the strange

the telling of the right and the wrongs

the tide’s wrath   slow erosion   the sea change

seen from beneath the waves through nacreous eyes

the weight of all that then buried full fathom five 

 

no flag flies and I return to the surface too soon 

now an astronaut on a windless weightless moon

premeditation?

premeditation?  (from the trial)

exhibit 7

1.  you

a mixture of metaphors

and other secret ingredients

a one-off recipe

sealed in a can

shaken

and then opened

spurting  messily

staining everything

in its celebration

of itself

  

2. e = mc²

1 a.m. I am

standing in the garden

myself and my shadow

and the shadow of myself

spilt across the garden

so much larger than myself 

testimony

testimony (from the trial)

exhibit 5

this need for proof    the narrative that thrift of truth

in telling that self    the one stained with hope

the one in your mind’s mind who survives   arrives

in the day to day of your facing each waking

whose escape is lived in parallel universes

where happiness prevails in the seemingly seamless

editing trick of the brain’s witness protection program

so you can always pick yourself out in the mirror’s line-up

 

remember that mother the one who was taken into hiding

spiders drawing the curtains   staring into the TV set   that shed herself

stepped out of her own story and may be gone for some time

other people called in to pick up the pieces   keep her clean

back in the cocoon the warmth the negation of the womb

with all its promises its never-ending futures all to end so unsuddenly so soon

such innocence again    the ghost slowly suffocated by the machine

 

crime scene

 

crime scene (from the trial)

exhibit 1

four walls floor and a window a door the bed

Cartesian planes    on the outside    on the inside

at what age do colours furniture personality arrive

paint or wallpaper the shape and content of a wardrobe

pictures posters a knick-knackery of being   hobbies

collecting coins and stamps scrapbooks wanking escape

never the door nor the window just the ceiling

on your back a record player the music you’re in the music

going round and round reeling not a you not yet not the feeling that …

and the view in the mirror    the terrible terrible mirror 

is the reflection part of you even when you’re not looking?