Interruption (Poem for the Narrator's Wife)
By Elliot C. Mason
- 1179 reads
Interruption
(A Poem for the Narrator’s Wife)
Lavapiés, Madrid.
25 December, 2016.
(for Isabel)
a head floating down
a river, i think,
i think that’s
what it is, or something
horrible like that, a
horse and its corpse
all deformed, or a sort
of astronaut uniform or
old rigid diving suit
but with no one
inside it, all limp
and soggy and yellowed where
once it was possibly
white, either way just
an image of corpses and
death and suffering in
every direction and
this long deep ringing
sound which is low
and high at the same
time and has a pumping
weight to it and it’s
unbearable to hear and
also the entire universe
has a thumping headache
and every wall and passage-
way smells like smoke
but bad tremendously
bad smoke and there is
a rare feeling of children
missing even if there
were no children to
begin with, what is sure is
that now they’re gone, and
this gushing sense of
wind like falling very
easily through something
maliciously thin like
air or tracing paper and
constantly breaking some-
thing in the fall, that’s also
a part of it, and a blinding
shimmer of heat growing
up the vision like a
smashed pair of glasses
or a very fast
train, that’s a very
intense part of it, a part
that does not relent and
it comes not only with
the sight but also
with this awful smell
like that unwashed rotten
vegetable taste of flossing
teeth after weeks with-
out flossing, and also
anything written on a white
background is written
in white and anything on
a black background is in
black and so on and the result
is that nothing can
be read or understood
at all, and then my wife
comes in and kicks off
her shoes and sits on
the bed and scratches her
hair and she pulls out a piece
of straw or something
similar and she examines
it and then drops it
behind the pillow and then
she looks at me and there
is paper stuck to my
bare body and my tie
is on fire (which is really
strange because i am
wearing no tie – i am
in fact naked), and she says
what’s going on and
i point behind the pillow
and say was that
straw and she says no
or maybe but i think
it was the end
of a cigarette and then i say
look my love i want
to spend my whole life
with you and she says well
that’s lucky because we’re
going to die in about
five seconds and, damn she’s
good, just at that
instant (or at least
within six seconds) we
keel over dead as
doormats and that’s
that.
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Comments
What a wonderful universe you
What a wonderful universe you've created! I was completely engrossed by it
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This refreshing change of
This refreshing poem with its elements of mise-en scene and heart stopping climaxes is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day. Touches of black humour with the macabre and such an engaging filmy narrative. Photo credit: http://tinyurl.com/zqk2rfb
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