Act & Friction

I’ve got curly pea shoots poking green fingers through my pink toes

And puckered pea pods bursting at the seams

So tight

They’ve expanded so fast

With ideas

Protruding out of cerebral matter

That such harvest couldn’t get any fatter

But can’t be plucked

For they are

Too tightly woven and matted with the thorns they

Graze your knuckles

Bloody hands

Draw back

And on the callous ground

Discarded pea…

Chalky milk tuft and pinion

You are the lampshade

Perching on my head.

Blink coal beads and

Stare back peck golden.

With a swift shuffle

Fine blue fluffy fluff

Twist coils, turn screws

Eat, pick, gnaw, rub and

Tac, tac, tac.

Bony hooks grip each hair,

Corner of swinging frame,

Yes contented to be your happy place.

Press your face to mine so

Each glancing Eskimo kiss

Tail bobs up down, up down.

Yo…

& these hands they drop too easily

to rest and hang lolloping

free but leaded & this nobbled chin slants down

so inevitably look for the cracks slide pavement slabs

long and further down this concrete towering street

feel too small to cope so

dull metal iron-licked keys miss their locks

& laces fly undone and uncontrolled

& the light seems darker now

yet i raise the corners of my dried mouth

so…

Like anchor-chains cast

Shooting fast into wild black depths

Where

I cannot see the bottom.

Fingers crawl crab-like across lettered squares

Tap, tap, tap.

Inside of me, there is a howl, an angry howl

A crying wolf of a howl

That stretches neck to show my bare chest.

I will howl.

Tears even, droplets of pitying unease

Navigate creases and crevices

Staining white…

That stench of apathy

And, when all is said and done What would you do I saw milky twitching bodies seeing me Black needled piercing through skin Each way sideways Skirting then blinking then pass. Now those emboldened staring saucers squint for Inspiration retracted to hold gaze Anyway which way But on me Yet always On me. And then their birdy chirping staccato Pecking words came Over and over More regular and Still,…

And the world stands still

But

Spins furiously

Ripped fabric like muscle

Mine’s sagging

Under weight.

Drained and repurposed

Hardwood, cold wood, under foot.

Feel skin so smooth-pressed and stretched

With sweaty imprint

Cats’ paws padded leather

Slippery yet firm.

I’m standing

With this dizzy

Washing-machine stomach

Fizzing acid roots up through shallow gut

Till my lungs are stifled

Blooded heat…