Music for Doppelgangers

1.

Just a book of life.
And though I fly from its page -
insect winged, the spider's gaze
is mine.

Yes, yes my eyes have seen you -
in the far light of attic windows,
polish of a simple spoon.

In the mirror's mouth
you stand for madness.
Dark woods lead to a distant shore,
an empty house, a door -
half open on destiny,
the man who waits in my hall.

2.

The heart is a boned colony.
A room without doors.
Where I trim sleep from astonished mouths,
awake at three to the Marabou's call.

3.

By dawn, I did shimmy from the branch!
Then - a corpse; now - a sun-snapped cadaver,
stepping hot off the Devil's stove.

My skin dreams of reinvention.
Succulence. Of bold flesh
returning bright and bloated;
fat rolling over the teeth.

4.

On the monger's slab, the flap of redundant fins.

I remember nothing, but blood's sour syrup;
chain gangs, the lumbered dance of St Vitus.
The passage of trains over moonlit moors,
packed to the gunwales, and each face weeping,
"friend, we are whipping boys for eternal law!"

5.

Unbutton your coat for cold spokes of sunlight,
the dead undertow of streams.
Leaves blow from the garden,
guide a dance to the nine acre.
To a thick and blubbery stump,
still robed with gnats.

What became of me?
Or in fact, the chattering boy at the back of the bus?
Who learned to grow mute in your shadow,
to wear a sky of the conductor's grin.

Either way, I have cracked soles and a life to give.
So please - Come in! Come in!