“Mr President”
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
“Mr President” taking the air along the avenue of skulls watching where he walks
“Mr President” burning a dollar bill just to watch the fire eating the paper, crawling from edge to edge like a national border gradually receding
“Mr President” reciting Arabic poetry to his pet parakeet of seventeen years, Bobby ‘Knuckles’ Fellaheen
“Mr President” there’s a phone call for you they didn’t tell me their name I can hear their tongue rasping against their teeth at the other end of the line it sounds like the ocean it sounds like a fire it sounds like the moon being steadily eroded in a bathtub of sweetened milk
“Mr President” performing squat thrusts on the shores of a vast sulphur lake
“Mr President” waiting for the post with his bone-handled letter opener lying at the foot of the door
“Mr President” rebuilding the city with his bare hands watch him lift the rubble watch the muscles moving in his back like a vast crowd pulsing under a sheet of leathery tarpaulin
“Mr President” in the guise of the Sun King music washing in from the next room bells & whistles & the scratching of a third generation tape recording of Metal Box
“Mr President” stuffing his ears with wire wool & tramping through the luminous snow
“Mr President” “hefting the axe on Labour Day”
“Mr President” with his eyelids of charcoal & his fingers of oak & his voice like an acre of fresh cut grass glistering in the morning yes
“Mr President” I don’t know where to begin
“Mr President” the children are hungry & covered with fleas
“Mr President” the jukejoints need more milk the sailors are thirsty after their exertions
“Mr President” telethon genius
“Mr President” & the names that he goes by: Golad of Mologoth, Feedbag the Destroyer, Ubu Tetrahedron, McCauley O’Tumbledown, Wise Old Pook, the Midnight Listener, the Screaming Rocket of the West
“Mr President” opening his palm to watch the flowers bleed from the wound that never closes & gradually fill the streets the cities & the oceans & the deserts of whittled bone until the world is drenched in petals this is his dream a glorious planet of flowers
“Mr President” easing off midnight’s blue overcoat
“Mr President” we know where they’re hidden there’s no use pretending
“Mr President” Mr Glass-Wrists Mr Waiting for the Barbarians Mr Moonbomb Mr Mister Mr Sleep No More Mr Blood on the Dancefloor
“Mr President” I can’t stop dreaming of night-vision footage the sky above the city a bilious green a terrible emerald I need spiritual assistance please send your ambulances your eunuchs your priests
“Mr President” delete delete
“Mr President” painting the jackdaw white
Simon Turner
Simon Turner’s first collection, You Are Here, was published by the Heaventree Press in 2007. His work has appeared in Dusie, Intercapillary Space, ShadowTrain, Anon, Liminal Pleasures, and is forthcoming in the next issue of Tears in the Fence. He co-edits the blogzine Gists and Piths with George Ttoouli, which has been running since spring 2007. He is currently eschewing the idea of a second collection in favour of an experiment in collective writing entitled The Soft Machine. Details are forthcoming via Gists and Piths. Be afraid. Be very afraid.