Une Semaine de Dunthornes: Samedi a Lundi

SAMEDI

Her father dropped his promises like change
into the laps of anyone who asked for them.
When they beseeched a moment of his time
he squinted like a sniper through his range
and sunk another promise in the centre
of his target. He relaxed, and smiled a smile
that was wider than the Kaiber or the Nile.
Whatever you wanted, that was your answer.
And when the cyclist on the roundabout,
hair rather girly, mouth stuffed with olives
collided with their car, he quietly promised
his daughter someone else would sort it out.

DIMANCHE

The general has a thousand and one novelty dispensers
to measure out his Jack, Black Bush, Courvoisier, Glenfiddich
all his favourite liquors, from the sweet to the acidic.
His wife, like all collectors' wives, does not see where the sense is,
and navigates them like a field of mines, or precious urns.
She frowns at that one shaped like Christ receiving head,
shakes her chins at Tintin, Noddy Holder and Judge Dredd,
wonders, 'Why not stamps? Or Matchbox? Toby-jugs? Rare ferns?'
No one dares to touch them. The legend is perennial:
the blond cyclist who lost his way and blundered up their garden,
crashed into the lounge, rebounded right off Jesus' hard-on
and broke in two the fire hydrant, whereupon the general
grabbed his head, forced his mouth round the Messiah's organ
and drowned the poor blond cyclist's lungs in cheap bourbon.

LUNDI

"See these two rocks?" said Le Patron,
nudging a pair of stones with his foot.
"They are rough-edged. No. Leave them put."
I had started to stoop, but halted the action.
"Now." He drew out a wine-coloured, velvet pouch,
and calmly placed his frail hand inside.
"See these." He took out two more. I eyed
them up. Smoother. Le Patron would couch
his lessons in such symbols. "The pebbles
in the bag have polished one another.
So it is with any monk, and his brother."
He held one aloft, like Cuban rebels
might hold grenades, took aim and threw it.
Knocked a passing cyclist dead. "That's how you do it."