To speak it out in an anecdote
When it won't do or be as story
A blocked way that is used up
Some of people live by stories
Some people give off signals

A view seen from a window
And here below is what has occurred
No way or circling quest

No news of a far death
Nor traveller's library of received wisdom

You unlock a cupboard
They are ready and waiting

Dear Floss has nothing to tell
Her last candle
                    stubbed out

Andrew paces you on the balls of his feet
A green coat prompting alarm in his erections
The signal to unwind him
Derives from a technique of interviewers
What does Terri do (Terri Tomato)
Imitates their fits (repeats songs and catchphrases)
And leaving a slight gap for absent remembered people
Who have vanished for the day to Colchester or to the coast
Suspended in amber, his mind reposes
Quite the conformist, a true coward
Creaking like a rusty machine
Recalling in a sequence of actions or gestures
Performed in a species of dream
Pulled out of an empty sack, no-one's home
Returns to another dream
& invents the glass thimble

So you feel sorry, you can
They will never see you properly, only say
Your words in drips and dribbles
Altering without doubt

                         Your meanings
Nowhere left to go
A nothing comes to pass
A pasteboard counter

Smiles at another's ordeal
Letting go one of his mock rages
A pleasure in his sister's pain
Readily cracks his face

Girl fears are unspoken
Wondering where they have gone
Obeys commands
Nobody rushes towards a knife

Trying to find a word for you
What isn't black or candy
Boy or girl, lightness and darkness
Treacle set into a rock.

On a small percentage, sad or happy
Now trying, now playing dumb
Gone where, gone there
Without rhyme or reason
Like a dropped stone in the grass

Copyright © John Muckle, 2004.