Swoop

<<<<

^^^^^

>>>>

Drunk?
No, I wasn't really drunk:
a single pint, an unfed mind,
made the world sparkle
just a bit.

The Theatre?
Yes, I'd mentioned Shakespeare:
you know, the usual
"would she be interested?":
a corner in an email.

See her there?
No, I hadn't expected to see her,
it was her day off.
Mind you,
I'm often there,
that time.

I had to ask.
I didn't get the choice,
I just watched myself,
engaging.

In a week.
It was fully booked.
You're right:
it seems a century.

Yes,
all the usual clichés,
but for me,
right now,
those clichés live.

Swung:
my mood has swung
to heavy-eyed unhappiness.

Once we've seen the play
"she'll stay with an old friend":

not
to let
the chance
of us
establishing.

And, so foolishly,
I said some words of hope,
just once, elsewhere.

Now, chattering types,
they swoop this privacy
and incomprehend so perfectly
they could be the pissing-in-the-wind parents
in a children's adventure movie.

I fear their rumours spread
like hay fever
on a summer breeze.

I'll call her,
hear if -
just hear.

I was stupid in shock.

Her girlish giggles,
her "hold me, kiss me, fuck me" giggles:
I am a serial fool.

Her voice turned away
as I exhaled stupidity.

The night was darkening.

He said to me,
"She's my girlfriend,
look after her,
she's scared of walking home alone,
walk with her".

With these words,
my madness flew.

So I walked with her,
and she talked,
she talked a never-ending harmony of fear.

And there was something of these darkening streets,
something of the light
too weak to illuminate where my footsteps rang,
illuminating nothing.

And this darkening infection,
it was invading me,
it was riding on her voice's chattering fear.

And I rode as though my undefended self,
a reeling self, looked up,
and saw the claws of madness dive,
a dive to steal existence,

as we walked along the darkening.

I fought,
for an hour,
I fought.
I had to give up
my sexuality
to win.

And had I lost,
had I fought the easy fight,
who would I be?

This is what she might have said:

"I do so love these fireworks,
sparkles of bright transience,
an insistence in the sky,
exploding.

Then the pub,
friends,
the usual walk home.

And a familiar stranger passes on,
his eyes clutch madness
as though it were an overcoat
in a bitter wind.

We slow,
we gather time around us.

Then, in a luminous dark
on the edge of lamp-post light,
a something on the ground
breathes.

It is that madman,
a man collapsed,
shivering in the summer night.

And his eyes open anger,
and the street light
seems to lose its power to form.

And it seems to me
he has a need
to strike his agony out,
if he to find his poisoning heart,
but that dark agony, devious,
telescopes his sight away
to those who flaunt existence,
coincidence.

And I know
as a bigot dare not look inside himself
to see his source of death,
so a madman, insane, cannot.

So he attacks when his agony tolls,
and his agony tolls at us.

And in this tidal darkness
I hear him howl his agony howl, a migraine howl,
and my instinct grips my reason dead,
and I run.

But his howls retreat beyond the distance
to someone else's problem,
and I relax,
and I, alone,
I let my pride
walk me slowly home."

And this is what she might have said,
but she won't.

The bastard,
he:
me,
I had a knife.