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

With a sentence of thirty (30) life-times, Dexter was easily the most jailed bird in the history of HMP Wandsworth, the largest prison in London. He had been sent here from Missouri in one of their Prisoner Exchange Programmes while they got the guy Brits named Wire4. Gorjas was from some small Island nestled between Africa and Asia but British by naturali-sation and one of those people who tasted different religious faiths the way Italians do wine. On the morning of 6th July in Wandsworth however, Dexter had not turned up for breakfast. Highly noticeable was the fact that he had been talking about it being his turning point. The reason being that he was turning forty.

To Matthew Cox, the head guard this morning, Dexter missing out on breakfast on such a day was very bad news. It meant something was up and Matthew didn‘t want to know what the thing was lest it turned out to be the most dreaded moment of a warden‘s work day. It was common knowledge that every prison guard prayed to snakes, stones, statues of men with potbellies or six-pack torsos to save them from one thing mainly — negative press. Each guard hoped that it would be on their enemy‘s watch when a convict like "Dirty" Dexter made a run for freedom.

And therefore on this morning when Dirty Dexter was meant to be celebrating his fortieth birthday, the guy was nowhere to be found. This made Matthew Cox anxious, even angry. His cries to the River God had seemingly been swept downstream when that major hurricane from the States decided to cross the Pond. He had sacrificed everything to that god and his mistress, asking that no expense be spared when it came to protecting him from the unthinkable shame of losing a con to the journalists in London. He had even conceded to the idea of it happening to one of his friends because he would rather offer them support than be the one receiving support from them.

'Cox, over here'‘ his colleague, Phil Denta called.

Matthew ran, expecting to be told his gods hadn‘t actually gone on a drinking spree on his hard earned cash, forgetting to keep their promise. He believed that deities have a supernatural Facebook where certain messages are shared in one of the for-your-eyes-only revelations. And this, he assumed was where the separation of the yolks from the whites happened in a world where some beings worshipped others.

Trotting like a calf, he halted, just inches from the booted feet of the prisoner who lay belly up because he couldn‘t have lain any other way. A shower pole protruded out of his mouth, shower head looming like a weather beaten sunflower plant.

'Go -' he was going to call on his god but remembered that he had none.

'Yessir!' Phil, who was a 6‘5 man of many talents laced with humility and good looks managed to say, turning to leave.

'No Phil, stay. I will go get help' Matthew said, trying to cover his embarrassment. He was not ready to let Phil or anyone else know that he was grieving the loss of his gods.

Life without someone to call upon seemed deadly already and he knew the pain of abandonment. Losing one god is something but two before one is thirty is something else. And Matthew was only, what? 29years 8months and 3days old exactly. And in that short time, he had seen much. His parents' god had been transported from Africa by his father when Idi Amin Dada and Daniel arap Moi declared Africa belonged primarily to the deeply tanned folks. The Kamba boy who had carved the god out of the giant Mugumo tree swore on his bare feet that the god would live for ever. But come the fires of 1998 and all that remained of the Cox‘s family home was a piece of China which had been used to contain the incense burned to appease the wooden statue. This particular god, whom his parents had stressed about as identifying with settling and whose duties included ensuring that unto the tenth generation, the Cox‘s family settled in England had been licked whole by the fire. The one whose duty was to guarantee they never again packed suitcases with a twenty-four hour deadline hanging over their heads, had left without even leaving a note. The settling god‘s name and job description was Barring Homelessness. Seeing that none of the Coxes became homeless again. But since he had died in the fire, escaping homelessness himself, it was up to the surviving Cox to find another god- preferably one that fire could not destroy. And that is why he had signed his life to the River God, making him his chosen-deity-for-life.

And this fuelled his distaste for all things supernatural. He had lost two gods in just under three decades. One to the fire and the other to the water. And now Matthew was not only without a god but a grieving and confused mess. He was an orphan, alone in the world without a parent, god, and maybe not a very bright future now that prisoner Dexter had hit the road outside of the electric fence. He had grown up mimicking that tough cookie from the movie Gone with the Wind. But this time, he could not say, 'God I miss Tara.' He wished he could say, 'God I miss God' just as much as he wished he could fly out of the prison corridor where he stood and where reality poked out of a man‘s gut, seemingly mocking him.

Dexter was gone and that was not a small thing. The guy with the shower pole in instead of out of his body was definitely not Dexter. So who was responsible for his death? If it was Dexter, all he would get from the judges if found an inch outside of the prison walls was probably a few additional centuries to top up his already stretchy sentence. And whosoever aided Dexter was sure to get shipped to someplace distant from the sunny side of Wandsworth and where public execution is legal. On this thought Matthew lightened up. He concluded that there were worse things than having a convict run on your watch. And as he entered the main office block where he was met by a lady who always brought the best of him to the fore, he was wearing a lopsided smile.

'Matt, I can‘t find Jockey or James.'

'What? They are in the library.' Cox said but feared the worst

'They are not there though the library doors are wide open. I‘ve also been to the kitchen and all that‘s left of Mike are a pair of boots, his stinking undies and the bandana he used to wear when cooking,' she concluded, eyes bulging.

'How come?' Matthew seemed unable to think or string up a full sentence.

'How come Matthew? How bloody come! Don‘t you know?'

'Of course I know Dexter is missing.'

'And that Carlos is dead.'

'That is Carlos?'

'I bet you didn‘t recognise him without his clothes on' said Linda.

'You saw him?'

'Yes. I did. Then I went to get help because the radio wasn‘t working. Matt, nothing is working. Look around you' she pleaded with a beaten voice.

'Oh my Go-, some god, any god!'

Just beyond the corridors and walls of the offices lay blue uniforms that had no owners waiting to claim them. And coming quickly toward them was Camille, looking as pale as white bread, shouting, 'She is gone. Just like that. I was with her, then I wasn't, or rather she was no longer there. Simply vanished. Someone knows what‘s going on?'

Matthew cleared his throat once, twice, and then again but still said nothing. If Dexter was gone and Carlos was dead, things were really out of hand. But above all, he was now really worried about the strange happenings in the kitchen, library and on the open spaces around them with clothes randomly thrown about. The two women stared at him then at each other then something snapped and a moment of complete silence engulfed them. And just as fast, a thunderous roar erupted from somewhere above them; they instinctively dived for cover. Every corner of the prison was aflame with noise. Shouts of hysterical laughter, cries, and shrieks could be heard coming from the floors above them, behind them and far out in the belly of the prison.

Chaos and madness enfolded the officers even as someone shouted above all the other voices saying, 'Even Dexter is gone. It must be rapture!'

'But he was a — oh, my gone-and-totally-useless gods!'

'Yes Matt. He was one of those freaking, rapture enthusiasts since June.'

'Where does that leave poor Carlos?'

'On the lawn, with a shower head ready to cleanse his intestines.'

'And what about us?'

'Ask god.Your god.'

'I don‘t have any. I am an orphan'

During the next few hours, nothing happened in Wandsworth. Most inmates envied Dexter. Carlos' situation was not very enviable but some wished for the after-life instead of the unforeseeable future which did not look very bright from where they stood in groups, fear their only master, especially when they looked at all the clothes and shoes left behind by all that beat it.