BORDERLANDS OF THE WORLD

The borderlands of the world:
Shape-shifting
Out of phase
Energy fields mesh into
Bizarre visions of other states.

Grey sky.
Water pours into flooded mine shaft,
Skeletal figures drift along underground passages,
Floating ghosts, decaying corpses fusing into slime,
The mildewed remains of previous wars,
Future graves.

Your eager legs straddle my body,
Sunlight streams bright
Through leaded panes, and
Outside, the quaint old-world charms
Of a country garden, complete
With white-painted dovecote,
Foxgloves leaning purple bells
Against a dry-stone wall…

You writhe and squirm,
You gasp and cry,
The borders change yet again:
Wet streets,
Cardboard City characters slouch
Through fog, addicts creep
Into corners. Tidal wave appears
On TV – some girl runs screaming,
Strange messages in the bar codes,
Giant underground bunkers
Hidden beneath the desert
(Where they tested The Flying Wing)
Black-uniformed soldiers line up:
A firing squad – the victim screams Mummy!
(They always do)
Old tom cat sits purring by the kitchen range,
Scrubbed pine table,
Appetising aroma of fresh-baked bread,
A large tin bath stands ready.

Your head is thrown back
As the ceiling shatters;
Fields of distant stars fold into origami shapes
Doris Day sings Move Over Darling
As a geometry of alien dimensions
Splinters, dissolving close
Deep blue body.

 

 

 

A C Evans


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