67: Spooning

Things fall apart They flake to pieces Dissolve into an imperceptibly fine mist They fray at the edges Crumble at the centre Shatter into smithereens And drift into indeterminate piles of noumenous waste Things snap off of larger things and are wrenched into swirling vortices high above the stadia They deplete imperceptibly in front of your eyes On the tip of your tongue By the skin of your teeth They shiver and expire by the senses thot wrought them And leave a menthol ‘Oh!’, ‘Oh….’ Things violently explode, (and this is true of all things) They engulf the resort in radiant flames And shower the shoreline in shit and albumen Eggs are smashed for nothing against the dead brows of de-canonised saints And gigantic steamers packed with megatons of Beluga caviar Are torpedoed and sunk in error, And it’s always unclear why. Things corrupt and become, at best, meaningless At worst, a universal mandate for the destruction of meaning itself And a simple frail wrist raised up to receive an ice cream cone Is crushed by a sudden horizontal blizzard of hail And the ice cream van, backs in panic over the entire queue of children, horrifically smashing their bones And, wheels screeching in the dirt, dusting blind the grandmother eyes, Hurtles off the cold rocks into the canyon. Things fall apart People haunt themselves with the worst And fatten their ghosts in the vomiting darkness They tear the soft lamb from the pasture And catapult it into the distant marshland Just to make a mad King wince Yes, things fall apart But they also come together Is a thing I think, as I lie face down on the forrest floor Chomping at the dirt in rhythmic gobbles like a princely carp And I raise my head to look up, through the clearing toward the horizon and see it still there on the hill The big house full of excrement Creaking and teetering and ready to shitblast the entire county at the drop of the wrong hat. I pull my beanie back over my eyes and continue scoffing the wood mulch Shhhhhh! Says Marc, pointing with his eyes at the hulk behind me. And I’m brought back to the situation. I’m still spooning with the velociraptor. Its claws clamping tight into my white cotton T. I feel so vulnerable, delicate, but for now protected, like the proverbial plastic cup of cocoa in the truckers fist. Chapter 1, a series of delicate sups, for sure, but scan forward to chapter 9, and it’s the inevitable smashing of the cup into the hooker’s crying face. “David Turner…?” The raptor’s awake! “Yes…”, I answer softly. “David Turner, you were squirming all night long — were you in any discomfort?” The claws tighten around my shoulder blades. “No, none”, I say. “David Turner, would you like to hear a recipe I recently divined?” Hearing a gruff snicker, I look over at Marc. He’s still snug-fast in the talons of his Atrociraptor. The latter pretending to be asleep. Serve the head fresh in the jaws, grind eagerly for fifteen seconds whilst ripping the remnant flesh to ribbons… I wish it hadn’t said this. I’ve always lobbied for peace between Man and the velociraptor. I pray for the fabled long grey sky worm; the liberator, with it’s acidic micturition, to fly on over and dissolve the lizards… My prayer goes unheeded as the raptor’s jaw clamps around my skull.