In Missouri

Beeping...
Yellow plasma.
Treacle tubes and scarlet drains.
I was all thick jumpers and rehearsal rooms.
All jelly stubble and guitars.

I take it neat with a twist of lime,
chaser of slime.
Here's how my life came to be on the rocks:

Last Thursday night in a shop
in Missouri, I was buying some milk.
Human kindness flowed from me
when i asked the kid:
"do you need some help?"
- and he ran me though with a kitchen knife
straight off the shelf.

Wasn't trying to be a Saint!
Like that Beckett bloke,
beheaded like a daisy,
he loves me not - ?
This is all I can think about
as the shopkeeper's dog
eats the hot marrow and people flock
to the punctured carton, leaking.

It's like the Last Supper here in Missouri.
Breakdown of my body into bread for the customers.
But my silly transfusion is hardly as cool.

Platelets and cells.
Lifesauce in motion.
Creates a useless solution
with the footprints
of a thousand weekday shoppers.

We stay well away from eachother now,
that shop and I.
Recovering in
Philadelphia, PA
Beeping...

But back there in Missouri,
they're open 24 hours a day
and the shades never go down.