PSIRENS (2010)

Psirens

And we break each other like

these small match heads

Drawn from the pockets

of your chequered dress.

Torn from the lawn parties you professed to host

and vulgar, with her psiren calls.

Again. (2010)

Again.

I wander the park and back and forth
but all I find now are the shabby horses,
the polocks and the cheap bicyle tours,
with the bandstand torn down and the
guide sifting through his papers preparing
for another crowd.

FROM GHENT TO SKARBEK

2 Euros to see her rubbery tits.

Free running behind plastic glass.

She is clean shaven, overweight

queen of those three square feet.

The bus is free, but baggage is extra.

In this district of Turks and Jews

we walk on eggshells, mime confidence

wish for whistles from yesteryears beauty queens      that shift their restless bones in the heat of January doorways.

A shop sells just two things: fish and bananas. The trade’s booming and the smell is sulphur. So we wait outside and shoot the shit about time.

Our room is ugly

decorated with bangles           rainbows

  polyester                                    head scarves.

There is no kitchen and the toilet becomes blocked easily.

We forget which way the bridge spreads

but know the city meets at the centre.

We impersonate Flemish, cough, wretch        they’d marvel at our ignorance,

even these urchins who speak our tongue, asking politely for change and tip their caps when we tell them we have none.

On the final morning, when the waters flood. We sleep a few hours in a disused fireplace, that struggled to work in the richest of times.

The outside is cold and the city costs

when we leave we travel light

and grow to detest what we have done.  

And so it works.

and so it works

                                   

                                                her fifth roll of fat squatting

                                   

                                                                                                                             ,

            

Paint thinner.

Paint thinner.

She sweet talks - her eyes thinner
slits, her courting routine short of
error and her face, expertly painted

We are monsters. Palid and 
overbearing

Fish.

And they spout at me, with open mouths