Philip Wilson
Revenge Comedy
A fleeting white-car-smudge and blurred words
to analyze, the driver being long gone.
Some quip about my hair, not quite heard
but gristling in the brain and living on
until, on the steps cut into the cliff,
by the stagnant pool with its token raven,
I had to sit down, tremble a bit, as if
words had broken a bone. He'd driven
a Ford (registered something FHM)
and I found it two days later, as I toured
the suburbs, late. I unbooted my can
of top quality corrosive. As I poured
it over his car that night, that midnight,
it took me back to removing some lines
my tutor did, one art class. I watched white paint
dissolve and turn to tin, heard the car sigh
as its tyres let it down. I cruised home.
Imagine his face, with his pride and joy
stripped and deflated. Oh dear, what a shame.
It's an image to live your life by.
Philip Wilson lives at Wivenhoe, Essex, teaches modern languages and avoids driving whenever possible.
Page(s) 50
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