Dee Rimbaud
Big Man
The Glasgow smile, an any city smile:
A clownish parody of laughter
On an otherwise impassive face.
You have seen this face in the backwaters
Of sprawling, peripheral, urban estates:
You know the feel of his lank black hair,
Have traced your fingers along the track marks
That snake from shoulder to tattooed hand.
You know the pin-pricks of “love” and “hate”,
The acronyms that tell you to fuck off and die.
You’ve heard all the violent twisting turns
Of his brutalised, wish-fulfilling mythology.
But the threads are Armani now, the bootstraps Gucci;
And he never tires of telling you how he lifted himself
Beyond the limits of his lowly horizon.
You can hear the coins inside his eyes,
The car keys in his cock pocket
Jingling with almost religious reverence.
He stands, brandy glass in hand,
Warming his darkness at the open fire:
The dinner guests, a sycophantic congregation
Lapping up the anecdotes of a reformed sinner –
Two sharp nicks and a swift kick
And he was permanently marked, a credit risk.
Imagine, he says, encompassing his domain
In a large sweep of his arms,
Smiling a sardonic double smile.
Page(s) 31
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