The Maul

At home         appeased am I

at ease                  satiated

bare feet     cereal     coffee

good book                 music

Then it's into the painful clothes
music blaring vocal cords straining along
oblivious of the surrounding mobile idiots
a twenty minute drive to the frantic place

Mammoth mausoleum of in-necessities
a looming lurid whale of priced-to-go putrescence
Ants and sand fleas work the festered flesh

Upon a stretched black beach
littered with glass and steel
I fight to find a place to put
my smoking metal air pollution

A short march ends
the final free step gritted and spitted
on spite then a muttered 'shit'
I make the push and am enfolded
No escape
Nevermore

The air inside sifts sandy and dry
A thousand other’s breath encased to
cake and drip and rub and chafe
and slowly slip inside my squirming face
Canned unlikely siren's song cranes to cancel
concentration
Working blindly through the fray
Milling seagulls peck at confused penguins
Crippled crabs dance sideways
claws clacking crushing tearing
Always pushing - ever jostling
a fight for perfidious possession

Once the clock has eaten my name
and grudgingly started shelling me clams
I don my jesters mask and wade in
Squawking the birds fall upon me
tearing the skin from my head
rending my clothes
stealing my ears
on and on
Urchins and kelp underfoot
Bloated sea-lions pushing carriages
filled with brine and groupers groping
slobbering bobbing and salivating
upon my shoes
Crumbling sand-castle coworkers
fight to find a place safe
from the tide

A half hour break
spent amongst the waddling and the squat
Lapping loudly they lick and suck
smears of filth from flaccid paper plates
and tainted tinted syrups from flimsy cups
A loon sits at my table
pulls at my book
puts pennies on my eyes
and informs me of nothing/everything
cigarette smoke fuming from its ill-wrought beak

Back to the hack
Walruses in sports jackets
concealing stolen merchandise
snarl snide questions
as mutated mussels
grip imploringly to my arms
and ask if we have what's right in front of them
what’s right in front of them
right in front of them
A shark accosts me with a clip-board
he's in from the head office
"Store within a store!" he barks
his bleached breath baking bugs to my brow

Finally the tide subsides
trickling out the flood gates
We survivors close the beach and
licking our wounds
paddle home
hollow eyed and degenerate

Music blaring vocal cords straining along
oblivious of the surrounding mobile idiots
a twenty minute drive to heaven
Then it's into the comfy clothes

Bare feet                   beer

a good          book     music

I crawl        into          bed

pet           the             cat

throw my arm over my head

and fade          into dreams

of   a       deserted    beach

cae 1992