NaPM April 25 2016

[Keith]

A simple contract

I trail a white gloved finger along the mantle piece
and blow the dust into sunlight,
plump and straighten the cushions on his settee.
I strip and stand naked in empty bedrooms
wrap myself in the cold plastic of the shower curtain.
Now I feel I know him.

He asked me to help him
of course I agreed with one condition
and my usual up-front expenses,
my only request was his memory.

Yet even now small things
appear to have bled through,
the mind is a marvellous creature
it tries to control even when it's
lifted from its bowl,
scooped by strong fingers.

The crime must fit the victim
so here I am in free verse,
sure, I could lament on how
I will mourn his demise with a bottle
of brandy and some sincere lies
but I won't.

I feel at this point,
I should offer a Veruca Salt warning.
Stop, stop please don't read on,
ah well.

My Volta to his unwritten sonnet,
who is he? you're afraid to ask.
He's nobody,
nothing for us to worry about
and the word
that will push his own knife
through his eye, is Sicarius
contract closed.

---

The Mask Beneath the Makeup
 
Pogo never caressed the dead boy
in the coffin, that was someone else
beneath the makeup. He won't bend
balloons into giraffes; he practices magic.

Under the popping heat, the fluorescent bulb
will float above you like an angel,
like an unspoken prayer. He will handcuff

you to a chair to see if you can escape,
and place a gag so that you cannot
call out to the crowd, who has seen this trick
thirty-two times before.

If he likes you, he will bend down
with pointed lips to give you a kiss,
uncuff your raw wrists, and you will lie
with him forever, beneath the floorboards,
your chest rising in shallow breaths.

Fuck me Todd Killer clowns, can someone please come round and turn a light on?