Trolley Boy

"You want to see something?" the trolley boy said. "I ain't shitting you. It's something."

He lit a cigarette, blew smoke in my face. "On my ten, got time." He smiled. "That is, if you're not scared."

I told him I wasn't. He grinned. Blew more smoke and led me down. Past all the trolleys. Down. Beneath the carpark. Down. Into the bowels of the shopping centre, to a hallway, its concrete walls stained with the sweat of the earth. Then along the hallway to a single unpainted wooden door.

"Open the door," he said.

I opened the door.

And there it was, in the tiny room beyond, a head in a trolley; eyes staring.

"Hello, mother," I said.

Moderately Successful Man

He was a moderately successful man. Still had all his teeth, and a man with all his teeth has not suffered the acrimony of the world. Have you met such a fellow?

Perjure is full of them. Deep sleepers one and all. Until the world bites.

I knew him a little. Well... as much as you can know such a shallow, affable pool of a bloke. No depths to plumb, but the possibility there might one day be. Perjure has a way of finding these people out. Perjure knows how to deepen the mere.

He was a moderately successful man. All the Bruised Poets of Perjure were. Go to the Vale of Last Drinks, talk to the toothless, the broken, the scribblers.
Tell them I sent you.

In My Pockets

are a sharp-edged ring
the teeth of two dead poets
a river boat
a book of poetry
lint
keys far, far too numerous for my single bedroom apartment, or my job,
cotton wool to stop the keys from jangling

The questions you must ask yourself
are why am I lying in your bed
and what else is in my pockets

First Sight

I have very little recollection of my journey here.

Money changed hands; I know that much.

There were tickets of numerous sorts, paper, plastic, a small metal ring (it's edges sharp enough that I cut my fingers, reaching for it in my pocket, and when I had handed it, its gleaming surface smeared with my blood, to the conductor she'd smiled, and passed it back quickly, happens a lot, love, she'd said). And there were horrible dashings from one terminal to another, punctuated by long hours, even days of waiting. I think.



But that is all, that I retain, of the journey. My reasons for coming are even hazier. Indeed I have no real idea at all. You'll hear that a lot, which is one nature of this metropolis. It is the city of seeping hesitations, sweeping gestures, it is the grand melting pot of lies.

But that is true of us all. Why are you here? Why did you ever leave the womb, when all there is are tombish certainties and taxes?


I have very little recollection of my journey here. But I do remember my first sight of the city. A hastily drawn sketch, handed to me, in a bus stop, in a small country town that was obviously already fatally bleeding towards the city as all such small country towns do. That sketch was my first sight of her, and I recognised her, even though I hadn't seen the city before, and the drawing was but a fragment of it. I recognised her as I would my own face, my lovely Perjure.