The Tightrope Walker<\/b><\/p>\n
The bearded grind-organ lady’s
\nQuaker-bearded monkey,
\ndepressed elephants,
\nsedated lions, insouciant
\nungulate dromedaries
\nand belligerent camels
\nwill tomorrow be ushered
\ninto confinement.<\/p>\n
With these will go
\nthe washing-machine-cum-
\nbisected-jet-engine that spins,
\nthat basin of sticky wisps,
\nspun stratosphere that collects
\non a dipped stick to make
\nedible pink insulation.<\/p>\n
Stacked like ark runners will be
\nparenthetical sections
\nof the two-ring circus,
\nand with them the big top’s
\nbamboo poles a small boy
\nnamed Hal imagined were
\nfishing rods for whales.<\/p>\n
His neck stiff from looking up,
\nhis eyes so long fixed
\non the glittering funambulist
\nhe imagines he is up there
\nwith her seeing what she sees
\nwhen she looks down:
\neyes all gelatin and night,
\nlike frogspawn in a ditch;
\nworkweek complexions, a
\nshade of pale past exhaustion,
\nexpressions as volatile
\nas empty petrol cans.<\/p>\n
His stomach fills with butterflies;
\nbutterscotch coloured they waft
\nand flutter as Ms Muffet makes
\nher way on bony
\nsheep-faced slippered feet
\nacross the braided wire
\nfrom tuffet to tuffet.<\/p>\n
Later he will not be able to say
\nwhen he got carried away
\nor why he hid in a wicker hamper,
\nunder baguette-sized lace-up
\nbulb-toed shoes, itchy neon-coloured
\nnylon wigs and red ball noses,
\non a bed of oily hawsers,
\npegs with hangnail heads,
\nmauls all dents and nicks.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow the pigeon-chested
\nlion tamer and the tightrope
\nwalker will pick out his cry
\nfrom the cries of macaws,
\nthe shrieks of parakeets,
\nfrom the ratcheting calls of toucans,
\nand drop him in the next town,
\nentrust him to the perfumed,
\nfire-breathing policeman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Just in through the door I spot an old rival. He is yacking, straining words through his teeth, and prone to changing the subject at the first sign I meet an Israeli man, draped in a caftan as though in fastening it he pierced his skin. Alex is here, refusing, as usual, to give in, His wife is with him, trying not to cringe, his compulsion to dress up in women\u2019s clothes, She feels ashamed for not being more on side, Who better than a poet to know it\u2019s not easy I gander due west, heeding nature\u2019s call, who holds before my face her slender hand, all the way back to her wrist). Her tiny palm, each one embossed with a propelling octopus. I dab one on the snail-mail of my tongue. Nothing then, no tingle, nothing until a line between dancers, until my muscles ache, as a barn opens to let animals in for the night. He is doing his fabled best to affect even when he whinnies, says, you look fucked, like a prize-fighter his black Everlast gloves. surely\u2014of a pearl-white harness. I fall loaded camel would struggle to go under. that octopus (sub genus Vulgaris) like an idea that inflames the public will, Distress telegrams coming in from everywhere, not from cowardice, but from the lingering notion I pull out my wallet. A one-way ticket, please, I\u2019ve made this trip more often than I can count which is the strength of my latest last undermined. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Tightrope Walker The bearded grind-organ lady’s Quaker-bearded monkey, depressed elephants, sedated lions, insouciant ungulate dromedaries and belligerent camels will tomorrow be ushered into confinement. With these will go the washing-machine-cum- bisected-jet-engine that spins, that basin of sticky wisps, spun stratosphere that collects on a dipped stick to make edible pink insulation. Stacked like ark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[320,322],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOctopus<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nHe is wearing his trademark thick cream suit,
\nwith tangerine buttons and green satin lining.<\/p>\n
\na way of speaking he calls susurration.
\nAn affectation, it leaves him short of breath<\/p>\n
\nthat anyone listening is starting to get him.
\nHis is the art of being boring.<\/p>\n
\nthat\u2019s cinched at the waist, a crimson stain
\nspreading out from the herringbone pin<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s all in-jokes in the Discoth\u00e8que Disco scene;
\nwe all tilt lightly toward what we likely mean.<\/p>\n
\nhamming it up on the outermost fringe
\nof the fringiest scene: the fabulous transmen.<\/p>\n
\ntrying to pretend it\u2019s all last year\u2019s news,
\nbeing supportive, though she still finds strange<\/p>\n
\nmodelling for her on a Saturday night
\nhis latest sheer frocks and low-rise shoes.<\/p>\n
\nhence her anger. \u201cPlease, don\u2019t say \u2018trannys,\u2019
\nher switch-blade tone setting me right.<\/p>\n
\nbeing locked inside a diminishing role,
\npretending everything\u2019s fine, everything\u2019s rosy.<\/p>\n
\nuntil arrested by an on-the-go girl, in hairband,
\nsucking a dumbtit, her freckles all sparkles,<\/p>\n
\nits fingers showing signs of hyper extension,
\n(one senses that with slight pressure they would bend<\/p>\n
\nmeanwhile, is divided in four by a cross,
\neach sector of which bears a postage stamp,<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTo make you swim where few have swum,\u201d
\nshe says, \u201ca life in ten hours, more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nI turn to pay her, but find she has gone,
\na wisp inhaled into the club\u2019s cavernous lung.<\/p>\n
\nappears\u2014a zigzag of joins through the parquet
\nfloor. I follow, funamble, one step at a time,<\/p>\n
\nuntil suddenly there comes a flare of lantern light,
\nthe click of a key in a lock, then a creak<\/p>\n
\nI enter, and there in the door-less first stall
\nis a plough horse, a grey dappled white.<\/p>\n
\nan over-the-fence-in-a-weary-sort-of-way look.
\nHis conker eyes have a calming effect,<\/p>\n
\nholds before my face two lacquered hooves
\nhe snaps together like halves of a book,<\/p>\n
\nAll this is a ceremony, a preamble
\nto his presentation to me\u2014a gesture of love,<\/p>\n
\nfor it immediately, for its Doris Day fifties\u2019 hair,
\nfor it being the corbelled arch a fully-<\/p>\n
\nAn hour, ten hours or a year has passed.
\nI find myself standing before a mirror:<\/p>\n
\nhas injected its lamp-black into my eyeball,
\ncausing my pupil to swell corrosively out into the iris,<\/p>\n
\nbreeding a strongman, a movement, an empire,
\nleaving all but a few wondering what the hell.<\/p>\n
\nagain I am with the shuffling masses in the station,
\nthose displaced, who refuse to go to war,<\/p>\n
\nthat they have never been invested in the place
\nnor ever will be. Notion calcifying to conviction,<\/p>\n
\nI relay to the eight-armed station master
\nwho lounges on the other side of the Plexiglas.<\/p>\n
\nand though I swear each time will be my last,
\nmy saying each time becomes more vehement,<\/p>\n
\nThis is my truth wrapped up in a lie.
\nI expect to perform this office until I die.<\/p>\n