impressions: a wet-cowboy
fresh off the 149 bus
bacon-mouth
pressure-mapping
God bless you Dear Beloved D.C.
wetly impressed
inverted shapes
the creases on a pigs ear
combining pink, and branded
pink and branded
underlined by a white roll
as our feet and metres stop their firm bisecting
still seeing tribal idiograms in great diagonals
the impression existed far before us
Dave dilutes into the office
a drape still across the window
and gravity is scattered
all over the hallway and bannisters,
marking rectangles pale and darker
Be-bop-a-lu-la Mrs. Pearson
compliments of the day to you
GCHQ and all that Russian jazz
he picks a path
between paper interruptions
office-delegates
punch chunks of shakespeare
punch chunks of Shakespeare
upon the backs of the women
as polygons set red with light
and the sex, incarnadine or rectory
poolside I.D.S. tongues the gravy
mouth plus food equals eat
amongst open-lid photocopies a small page of text underlined
thin serifs point Dave’s eyes left to right
three flat-bottomed domes and a vulva beside
tripping over dark punctuation
circles and diagonals and triangles
rise from the surface
clench-ripple muscles around the shaft
to reach the church
he notices the answerphone blinking
lonely
green lights
his forefinger indexes play
as a corner of fallen bedding lies half-covering a small page
we didn’t appreciate your not cleaning
any of the kitchen cupboards
or removing the pistachio shells
from down the back of the sofa
we didn’t appreciate your sigh in the strip
turning pages quickly into overlaps
and stacks puts us to shame
above the order of the floorboards
in the downstairs back room
there was no loo roll (you promised you’d leave some) either
in the toilet zone
Dave reads old co-ordinates
the strip-light flashes
adrenaline unloads down neural pathways
making his portfolio zing
i will have 30% of the money
you will have 40% of the money
don’t try asserting the remuneration
the two of us have 58% of the entire money
your money today or work?
he flicks GOD HELP US onto the wall
in header bold
rendition you 50 for a hundred
then adds (she’s my bank, she’s my bailiff)
a pulse in his neck
trembles like a small bird (a hot thrush)
and the noise of copper dull
Dave wishes he could fly through stars into West Africa
with the Director of Customer Services
who believed in the noise of dull copper
the flushing shuffle of paper
dollar legitimacy replaces posters of popstars on the walls.
compound marginals
alphabets formed across modernist-looking fauna and gods
Dave remembers his Aunt Dorothy
she believed in the dignity of her front doorstep
and her worst fear
a modernist-looking building
with a slightly nautical design
led by fingers and the blank bottoms of pages
he leaves the office
click here to run fingers red into angles
soft hued and edgeless
co-ordinates, spine to side no underwear
resolving to bench press his hair
and chew his gums raw
ongoing guerrilla conditions apply
breathe in morning bench press chest hair.
collaborative text by Paul Hawkins & Mali Clements
from Place Waste Dissent (Influx Press) out November 12th 2015