Madness Letters
Dream Catcher
Elisabeth was
bored so I made
a dream
catcher out of her old knickers.
Never heard a
scream sound like sickness.
It was time to
give up smoking dope anyway
and since she
left it keeps the flies
from dancing
on my eyelashes.
‘When the hurly-burly’s done…’
Elisabeth calls
me, ‘I’m bored
of being a stuck-up
bitch!’
I cough. From
the swing in my garden
the clouds
over the allotment
look like
three witches fighting
over who gets
to sleep with the sun.
I kick the
phone into the pond.
Tell the cat
on the fence to kill something.
Evolution
Elisabeth is
long gone, she doesn’t call
any more. I
wonder if she still brushes
her teeth
after sex. Once, we tried to alleviate
her boredom by
getting freaky in a tree
but I kept
dropping the bananas.
Giddy up
Elisabeth is
on my mind each time
I feel boredom
on my shoulders
like giving a
fat child a piggy-back.
I write her
name in ketchup on
the fridge,
then lick it off.
Doctor’s
appointment Tuesday.
Lady Dangerous
Elisabeth called!
‘Did I leave my diary
under your
bed?’ I stuttered apologies
like a dog
choking on a plastic bag;
the pages I
didn’t burn I taped to my
mirror, all
that melancholy bitterness
and hatred for
men, especially male poets.
I wonder if
she has ever chipped away
the Hughes
from the Plath stone…
Last Orders
Elisabeth stood
in the doorway
dripping with
rain – I was so bored
I invited her
in. We ate chicken.
We danced the
funky chicken with
bellies full
of chicken. We both kinda
missed the way
we frighten each other.
Almost There
Elisabeth
turns to me after the sweat
has dried and
our pillows have tangled,
‘What happened
to that nasty dream catcher?’
I pinch her
cute little nose, pull a funny face,
keep her
distracted. When she’s in the bathroom
I dismantle
the shrine in my wardrobe.
Nightmares
Elisabeth doesn’t
get bored any more.
I don’t get
bored any more; we don’t
get bored
together – it sounds like
laughter
before it reaches high pitch,
a gasp, a
wheeze, a phlegmy gargle…
At night her
bra moves across the floor,
whimpers to go
out for a wee.
Pretending to be Happy
Elisabeth says
I’m so crazy she’ll never
get bored of
me; I am constantly creating
weird
situations. She wants to have crazy
babies with
me. When she pops to the shop
for cider and
crackers, I fall to my knees
and pray to
the light-bulb. Sometimes
craziness is a
choice, then it takes over
and changes
colour, constantly, like a British
summer sky or
a pair of white boxer shorts.
Today I am
grey with exhaustion.
Doomed
The tablets
worked. And the cannabis
is well out of
my system – I can’t tell her
I’m better
now, she’d get bored of me.
If she catches
me watching a documentary
on rural
architecture, I leap into the air
and declare
war on the curtains.
If she catches
me reading a book
on the
industrial revolution, I jump up
screaming,
‘Grapefruit promises, it’s dirty
time! Quick,
grab the spade!’
Beyond Good and Evil
It gets easier,
you just let go. Let go,
listen to the
singing colours. Make her happy.
Loneliness is
worse, no one to grin and make me soup.
It’s quite
comfortable, this kaleidoscope…
I smile, lick
my moustache and close my eyes
* Bobby Parker lives in Kidderminster (England) has poems published in Agenda, Obsessed With Pipework, Fire, Iota, Rain Dog, Cauldron, The Coffee House, Curlew, Krax, Weyfarers, Purple Patch and Urban District Writers. He also now publishes the Last Chance Before Bath-time series of chapbooks.
