Tuesday 25 June 2013

Wonderland



A smile costs nothing, so they say,
so I grin til she gets self-conscious;
                                       like a hot coal
dropping her gaze to a forest floor
mottled with moss and birdshit,
     none of that
sugar and spice malarkey
where even the flowers smell like flesh,
                              strung by their pretty red heads
like pigs on a butcher’s hook.

One hundred watts of dentistry
shatter the pinetree dark, stripes sliding
                                like oil off a duck's back--
slim as ribbons,
tangled varicose veins—
          please stand and behold
the great vanishing act,
this incredible cat
                              in your candy-sucking dozens
wheezing on smoky narcotics,
my odd and neurotic
            spectator is a thousand wriggling legs
too high to do anything else but question
every fucking detail—
                              who are you?—
blaming the fumes
from those dull and knock-kneed bastards
            painting the roses red
for her menopausal majesty.

We’re all mad here. I growl when I’m happy,
wag my tail when I’m pleased;
                                   therefore I’m mad
but still—
I have stopped attending tea parties
          in tasteless hats,
but grinning at everything,
everyone
           and nothing at all
I will get by on a Hollywood smile
and card games,
                     cosmetic dentistry
and those crazy catnip nights
                                   in Wonderland.