And dauntingly dark,

As she stepped through

The bowels of Brinkley Park.

The trees, dew-slimy as the beads

Of sweat on the face of the killer.

The mist clung to oak and grass,

Like a scene from a midnight thriller.

Yet this was a far cry from

Any television show,

As were her treacle tears with

Each life-sapping blow.

Shadows ripped the grass verges

Into vast empty ravines,

Vast and empty enough to

Swallow her muffled screams.

He acted out his illness,

Gas to his hallucinated spark,

The day he raped Charla Leeston

In the bowels of Brinkley Park.

And another woman fell victim

To the penis wrapped in barbed wire.

Another woman withdrew into the attic,

Seeing smoke and in fear of the fire.

Another woman wraps herself

Into one piece of clothing more,

And another woman finds

The thirteenth bolt for her security door.

Rage

Rage

Take the sea in handfuls

And spill it onto this city’s streets,

And no one will notice at first.

Vagrants will laugh into the bottle,

Builders will point from the scaffolding,

Intellects will snort in mid-conversation,

Office workers will glance through windows.

Taking the sea in handfuls is not a loud task.

I may sing while I am doing it.

I may skip while carrying.

I am allowed.

The glances and snorts irritate.

‘Yeah – it’s the sea, ha!’

It feels so triumphant to let it

Trickle through my fingers into the cracked kerbs.

From Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999)

MORNING BREAKS IN THE ELEVATOR

The Waitress and the Nights of the Round Table

The Waitress and the Nights of the Round Table

Each immaculate table a near perfect reflection of the next;

A ’40s Hollywood formation dance captured in time –

In black and white.

On the mahogany, polished as a morning pond,

Each tablecloth flapped as swan’s wings,

And each landing perfect.

She made pieces of butter, intricate

As the hand-woven curls in a judge’s wig.

And if not so legal and final

They’d be a crest of waves

Caught in yellow sunshine.

Each serviette a silent smiling cygnet born in her hands,

Each flower arranged as if grown for this evening

Sucks water slowly through the stem and raises its neck.

They bathe in the light flitting from a cut crystal vase

And stand assertive in centre tables, waiting.

She picks a speck of dust from a spotless unspeckled carpet.

Her reflection buckles in the neck of a mercurial fork

While the solemn red candles wait

To weep their red tears.

She pauses as a mother would for a moment

In the front room, before the visitors arrive,

In admiration and slight concern,

And bathes in the symmetry and silence

And the oddness of order –

Even the tables seem to brace themselves as she leaves.

The picture was distorted when she returned from the kitchen.

A hungry horde of steak-sawing, wine-guzzling,

Spirit-sapping double-breasted suits had grabbed their places.