Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Fade in slowly from black. The ramshackle garden - patchy, dry grass, old bits of rusting farm machinery, a spare truck wheel - comes into focus, backed by woods. Absolute silence. Now pan across the area. The house looms into view - big, rambling, white paint peeling, sinister looking (use a wide-angle lens for this) - and out again. Quick snap shot of the town name and population sign. Back to black. 

"Less than five hundred people in this town. We all know each other here. We all knew who she was, hell, went into her store every week. And we sure know who he is now." 

Inside the house, looking out of the window. A beat up pickup truck sits outside, parked at an angle to the house. Cut to a blurred shot of the living room floor. Move slowly to focus on the junk scattered around. The only sound is the buzzing of flies. A sheet of newspaper ripples slightly, as if moved by a breeze. Move across the junk on the floor to the door. Move slowly up the door. Freeze-frame (a very slight blur might be good here) at eye level, where what looks like a female wig has been nailed to the door. 

"We're all pretty upset about this business, don't want to talk about it a whole lot. You people come snooping here to dig up dirt, and open up a lot of sores. We're never going to forget what happened here, never. Now get off'a my property or I'll set the dogs on you." 

Full frame photograph of a man, all-American looking; baseball cap, grey hair, stubble, red and black lumberjack shirt. A wiry sort of grin. It's an old photo - the colours are faded. 

"What do I want to do to him? What d'you think I want to do to him? He's damn near destroyed this town. He'd better stay in that hospital or me and the other men'll string him up and cut his balls off"

Shot, from the back, of the naked body of a woman hanging upside down in an out house. Cut quickly to shot from the front; the effect should be shocking and immediate; she has been gutted and decapitated. The body is clean, legs apart, ankles tied tight with rope and attached to an overhead beam. The wrists are also tied and are straight, against the woman's sides. Pan (slow motion here, move camera a little as if dizzy) 360 degrees. Around the walls hang tools, odd planks of wood lean against each other, coils of rope hang on hooks, an axe lays on the dirt floor. A worktable is in the corner. Sunlight streams in from a far window. 

"I'll never forget what it was like walking around that house. I always thought the guy was a little odd, but not harmless, just lonely I guess....cops see strange things, but that house was the worst, a real chamber of horrors. There was so much garbage on the floor, we was wading through it. It made me sick just thinking of what I might be treading on. I don't mind telling you I was near to tears when we found her, strung up like that. She was a decent woman. How could anyone do that ?A couple of the guys 'cuffed him and took him away. I couldn't bring myself to touch him." 

Shaky footage of a misshapen figure prancing naked outside the house in the moonlight. Move in closer. The figure is both male and female; male genitals, female breasts. And two faces - the old man's face is mostly obscured behind a mask of a woman made from human flesh. 

"I would like to fuck you in the out house where you left her. Do you have any killer friends? I would like to fuck them too." 

The camera follows the cops as they pick their way through the house for the first time. It is dusk, the light is not good; there is a definite atmosphere of apprehension and quiet fear. The cops speak in near whispers. 

"....In the eighties he achieved some kind of 'cult' status among hordes of people who fancied themselves as hip, horror-loving outsiders...." 

The camera fades in again, outside the house, very low to the ground. The bottom of the porch is just visible on the left. The field of vision rises to eye level, and the camera starts moving around at walking speed. A rasping, breathing sound can be heard. The camera moves up the porch steps, the screen door opens and the camera goes through. We hear feet shuffling through the junk as we move into the living room and towards the far corner. The camera moves down quickly - as if squatting down - a pair of hands appear and push a mound of magazines away. A shoebox is visible. The hands clear some space around it and pick it up. The lid is taken off to reveal several female vulvas. One is green, rotting. The right hand disappears for a few moments, then reappears and drops another vulva in. The lid is replaced, the box put back in place, the magazines piled up again. 

"See the car that hauled the dead from their graves!" 

Distant shot of a flicker of orange light in the darkness. Cut to black. Close-up of the house in the grip of a raging fire. A window bursts with the heat. Pull back to reveal people standing, watching. One man has a gasoline can in his hand. He spits on the ground and walks away. 

"So the old house burned to the ground, did it? Well, I don't know nothing about it or how it happened, but I can't say I'm sorry, or surprised that no one hurried along there to put it out. Maybe we can get on with our lives now, maybe one day we'll be able to forget what happened. God knows, we did nothing to deserve all this." 

Shot from the back of a cell, looking out toward the door. Pushing for space on the other side of the door are countless newspaper men, some with notepaper and pen, screaming foR quotes, most with big cameras. Flash-bulbs are going every couple of seconds. Slow fade to black, as if the man is closing his eyes. 

"To the guy who got it all started...."