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One summer
Flies came to stay in the kitchen.
At first one or two
Clung to the nets half alive
Five minutes later
There were
Fifty
In a great slothful clump
Buzzing and somewhat aware
Fat with disease and noise.
I sent them out with a broom.
Later there were fifty more
Their harsh buzzing lamenting
Those I had dispatched.
A few buzzed about frantically trying to find them
The rest clung on the nets to form
A twitching turd of legs and wings.
I was too drunk
Shut them in and go to bed.
I should have let those spiders stay
They warned me, too.
When I needed a drink
The kitchen was a blizzard
Of black buzzing snow.
Thousands. I knew.
At last god had come to judge me
This was his punishment.
Take me lord! End my suffering!
But he hadn't.
Tiny black bodies banged against me blind.
I coughed out a couple.
This was no judgement
No test
No salvation.
I just lived in a shitty flat
With beetles in my drawers
Dead pigeons in the walls
Flies in my kitchen.
The more I surrender to this
Need, the less blood of men flows through me.
This is no oily
Sweat stained shirt upon my skin,
These words leave no greasy
Splinters beneath grey black nails
Or bend my back with their importance.
Each mental fidget softens me to flabby wheezing
Defenceless.
Yet my mind screams with
New muscles tearing,
Shredding memories into strands
Of bloodied phrases
Acid belched and drowned
In scalding spittle
That lap my feet
When striding,
Direct my anger
When suckling,
Choke me while sleeping.
I was once
Trembling with possibilities
Stiff with dead eyed desire
Perfumed with inky flesh
Now I am not. My nights
Are spent bouncing my voice
Against artex skies
Raftless on alcoholic seas
Yet I do not wish to be go back again
Not any more
My planet would still gravitate
To darkened dunced corners unmourned
My sun would burn with a
Terrible coldness unfelt
My stars would blink
For attention unnoticed.
McEniff was born in Liverpool, England in 1971. He has had many jobs but has always been a scribbler of words. He has written far too many short stories and poems and has just finished his second novel. One day he might even try and get them published.
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01 May 2008, 07:01