John West
Mr and Mrs Death
He sucks at his dentures,
spits, shits in his pad
and dumps it into the toilet
then pisses all over
the walls.
She’s a stunner, she’s every model
out of each glossy mag in the shop,
blond or brunette but sometimes,
just sometimes,
she’s redhead.
Inseparable always,
him slouching along
with his crutches, her gliding,
fondling the air, having no need
to breathe.
He prefers night
but it’s not just the old
that he comes to;
the girl in the wheelchair,
she saw him coming.
Her element is day,
spring, summer
but never too hot, she never perspires
and she never, ever
gets flustered.
He’s a rash of black sores,
his fingers break off, half his bum
is bed-sored away
with more falling off
when he shits.
She’s never been seen
in a toilet, make-up
is always already on,
she never
belches or farts.
His cum
sears concrete
and steel;
her breasts
leak odourless poison.
They’re always arm-in-arm,
the oddest marriage
everyone says,
priests, shrinks,
the boys, the girls and the men.
but one of the pair
always arrives in the end, lurches
or glides up your path,
knocks - loud as a klaxon
or soft as a feather -
and you’re always, always at home.
Page(s) 19-20
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The