halfway house

halfway house (Buckingham Place)  

 

on a white plate

half a slice of white bread fried

to a crispy saturated brown

half a tomato charred with a

cold heart   then the pot luck

of a gnarled finger of a chipolata or

a fried egg the pale washed out yolk or

(best of all) a rasher of streaky

wash it down

a cup of too milky tea

sugar in a chipped bowl a plastic spoon

 

upstairs

the room shared the sheets the towels

the chaffing the erasing of the soul

the sense of being burgled  

someone stealing in the ghost in the machine     

woken early morning

the farting and the snoring

breathing out breathing in

a freedom wreathed in contamination

the thickening of the skin

halfway there halfway where the blank slate

the rubbing out of the graffiti

the indelible the inedible the leftovers

the rind upon a white plate 

guided tour

guided tour (Imago considers posterity)  

 

and here is his desk

or rather a reproduction made from

a pencil sketch that may have been

drawn by the woman who was said to have been

his lover where his head would have rested

upon the cool dark wood seeking inspiration

 

and here is a chair very like the one

he would have actually sat upon

to compose his greatest works

or to dwell upon them

as they came into being

or if they had been written elsewhere 

 

and here is the window

the view from which

his eyes would have settled upon

as he contemplated the empty page  

the trees have gone of course

and what’s left of the sky …

 

let’s move on to the bedroom

and to where the actual chamber pot is said to lie … 

snowman

 

snowman  

 

Imago watches snow fall

like slow rain each flake

unique a six-sided trick

shaped by its journey

to cluster on the surfaces

of the earth compound

as simple as water

a herd animal sheltering in a storm

the shrugging on of another skin

a snowball fight an Olympic event

a snowman atop a mountain

the reaching of a peak

an iceberg on the tip of the tongue

a glacier as slow as time

an avalanche as quick

an age advances retreats reveals

a fingerprint like a fossil

a Christmas card

the icing on the cake

 

How the heart melts

such a thing

 

such a thing    

 

as a cake there

on a white plate untouched

there’s some kind of cake a fruit charlotte

the succulence of apple with berries bleeding into

the meringue mixed in with the crispy pastry crumble

a work of art colours texture working in the mind on the palate

the tongue the soft gush of saliva the plain white canvas of the plate

I take a fork break off a piece but am stopped the hostess leaning in over

me her hand holding down my own a cake fork she says insistent replacing the

fork in my hand with a cake fork and I am stopped for a moment and then it slips

into place the shopping online socmed a cake fork the cake upon a white plate the cost

of a set of cake forks of white plates the pleasure the lifestyle the idea I take the cake fork

carry the cake on its white platter out into the cave of darkness and sit with others by the fire

in the garden our shadows cast against the dark wall of trees behind us and I break off a forkful

and I lift it slowly to my mouth and I want to believe that this cake will taste as good as it looked

in the artificial light of the kitchen before the hostess leaned in over me and instructed me urging

me to take a cake fork and stab it into my heart and stab and stab and stab and so fix the wound

clear out

 

clear-out 

 

the skip arrives   unloaded like a burden

metal against metal   the machinery

the grinding mechanics of what is still yet empty

with the attitude of a coffin chosen but unfilled sturdy

 

then the work begins   years that have carelessly gathered

in boxes overfilled and spilling in black binbags stuffed

bursting and split amongst webs forlorn and tattered

are dragged and heaved through opened windows

 

to fall

 

cascades of childhoods a honeymoon and holidays

of clothes outgrown cast-offs and hand-me-downs

the broken and the bent the damaged and the disowned

the flotsam and jetsam of undiscovered beaches of unremembered bays

exuviation

 

Exuviation  

 

Imago wakes one day to wonder if the soul

Of the child will accompany the soul of the adult into heaven

For in a dream from which he awoke in a sweat

His younger selves lay upon the floor discarded

Were draped over chairs drying had been folded carefully

Then stuffed into chests of drawers were hanged

In cluttered wardrobes unwashed unironed innocent

Blooded   bloodied and fleshless   price paid

Disingenuous unsung

Imago shivers in the skin he is yet to shed

Naked and cold with no hands to hold

on stage

 

onstage

     

there’s all that waiting in the wings

other people’s time   for you nothing

just a twinkle in someone’s eye and then

led to what you believe is centre stage

not yet spotlit   the lights coming up

taking an age the crowd restless

and so many extras

and those first-night nerves that last

a lifetime even with all that prompting

and such a short run   a premiere

an unending rehearsal ending

in Act VI   the curtain closed

the auditorium empty

the stage in darkness

the caretaker’s

turning of the key

 

everyone has gone home

gone to the after-party

uninvited

alone