from A Democracy of Poisons
Step back. Look how an alien structure emerges from familiar details. Step even further back. See how well you can scarcely see the scattered seeds and clods of meteorite. Now turn and look at the structure again. Tell what you see. In even steps the Complaints Department shrinks while Public Relations take over room after room from which spokesmen and Pokémon women poke forth & multiply. Now retrace you steps while the familiar structure breaks up into alien details.
Fresh from the shower re-fleshed from the pornographic flower shop a chalet slips down a fresh cliff fall and lies facedown on the rocks of Jesus of the Beach. On the shingle. On the sand. Facedown. Facedown the shower door to the shop is a window in the windowless irritation of the tide-line or the aging enemy within. I heard the miners that enemy within the Earth wring out carbon fresh from the local shower. Double agent steps sheepishly from the little theatre voting booth.
Prudence puts recipe for vertigo back on the high shelf floods the batteries in a shower of hot ash from the crater by the gate. The postman’s terminal man in a van’s discreet progress races Zeno’s arrow to addresses in his customer file. The lock on the nearby canal never stops filling. I feel sick. Are these the heights of non-fiction? The distant look on a distant canal never stops emptying into a Japan shaped like the British Isles. Step away Judge. Oh how healthy is our democracy!
Step up and marvel at the cheap Americana. Look! See! The creator by the park gate digs out a muddy battery instead of a flint. Giggled sparks light-up a parked postal coach collecting Christmas cards from the lockkeeper’s complaints box. Look! – a horse-drawn mask facedown on the rocks. See! A black cat tied-up with white elastic dancing atop the town wall. Look! – see the masque follow the wall around the waist of a column of ants carrying a used car battery beyond the pale.
© Tim Allen 2018
Montage: Rupert Loydell