lollipop lady

a thick arm or two leaned on and out of car door windows

and told her to purr like a kitten, so maybe she taught herself

the lollipop lady, sweet as anything, like ferry to the other side

keep your loose change in your shoes, she purrs like an engine

why lollipop? says short stuff on the kerbside one day, kicking

sour peaches. cause all of them are sweet i suppose, but maybe 

it’s the shape. short stuff picks up another, sour peach, hurls it

at the boy who stole her loose change, knocks him off of bike

down street rolling like her laughter out her belly. she laughs

like a sour old man and purrs for the lollipop lady. for a long time,

though it would get her, sweets, treats and sugar things. it doesn’t.

Charlie (a place called not me)

(1)

Charlie

i am in the business/of placement

(Charlie coughs as three soldiers walk by)

i ask them to make some valentine chocolates to sell on the frontline

they laugh:

then they stop/Charlie’s eyes fall a little bit/potted pansies yield themselves to the/   space   /

‘a place called not me’

:it is thusly referred to/because if flowers aren’t self aware/well they told me there would be no sun/Charlie bites down on lip/i stare

down…

my eyes exactly horizontal/to the surface of my coffee/the bubbles puckering the surface/like

like an old photograph in a fire

two old ladies bitch about us quietly/sipping their coke zeros through straws/their kept stares never

ceasing…(not ever)

(2)

…well then…

Charlie took the sugar from the jar/and emptied it into his cheeks/holding it:

there

waiting for it to slowly dissolve

(Charlie’s eyes watered)/tongue twisting/the pansies yield further/into

‘a place called not me’

then

(3)

and then

(Charlie tries to become a planet)

turning a sugar filled head 360 degrees to the RIGHT!/and twists it straight off with a:

POP!

red billows like a sheet on the clothes line (like the ones i used to make houses with when i was)

small

and the old ladies chatter like/serves you right/and that’s when Charlie says to me:

this sugar tastes like cheep gold

and I’m still not a god help me

/i cast a cold stare down and say/

do you remember what I told you:

ghosts go to the sun and come back golden/that’s why all the houses in the hills at night/seem so fucking lonely

…during the day

they reside in the sugar jars of over priced cafés/and/

in the coke zeros of old ladies

and i can safely say/that YOU…………………………………………………………………are my most favourite kind of colour

…but i won’t put you back together…

i stood and the sky caved into Charlie’s head

(filling it with space

and empty blue)

(4)

…and i leached out the red

from charlie’s body

to make jam for my toast…

in the morning i could see Charlie rising

a ghost of gold and blue

to stare down exactly horizontal

to us

as i renamed it

‘a place called not me’