Saturday 24 April 2021

Witness Protection

 

i.m. John Armstrong

 

The sound of horsehooves on the stair carpet

Rustling winds as a man climbs over an open gate

 

The identifiable mystery man

The stranger you know

Seated in his stained gilt glassware

Booming away awawy awaay aaaawwy awa ayyy wa

Declaiming in Chinese Greek he does not know,

The language of the stage

 

A samurai sword through parts of a suit

Legs and limbs lie loose and lost

Far below the watcher’s gaze,

The short-foot colour of impatient attention

Turns anemone-handed cartwheels

While synchronised disagreement pendulum ticks each nod

Towards its own synthesis,

Aufheben whether you will or not

 

Tremulous parakeet creaks

As a mustard gaudy stone head

Shakes its painted hermit-crab fringe,

Staring out

Over three women in trenches

Who dig monument tributes

Of green-sided lizard raven flowers

And canopies of wine

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