Under the Magnolia
It was, as always, under the Magnolia Tree.
At first there were the usual clichés:
the staccato thud of Kalashnikov rosebuds
as she stitched him up,
and, for no extra consideration,
a free crown of thorns.
“Hide them in your jockey shorts,” she said.
“No one will know, and the discomfort
will force you to remember!”
“No,” he thought, “No, I shall go down.
I shall go down now.
I shall go down now and I shall fall, fall forever.
I shall fall like red wine
into the green and whistling serpent grass.
I shall fall like blue silent thunder,
mute with un-realization
I shall bleed back into the red earth
like an unwritten song.
I shall lie there, scarlet at first, and then crimson,
And then black and hard
in the green and whistling serpent grass.”
But then, although the green grass
throated its full funereal chorus
and chirruped till the cows came home,
surprisingly,
there was no movement on the part of the ground.
This time the earth did not move.
This time the ruddy, bloodied soil
did not rise to receive him.
There was no enfoldment.
He remained unclaimed,
like a discarded cigarette package, rather.
And so, I suppose, after a while
The bleeding stopped.
June arrived, you see.
June arrived with pre-meditation,
and stepped on his face.
That’s what happened.
It must have taken the nimble pace of a conjurer
To skip across the garden like that,
and in a trice change the colours
of the flowers.
And indeed he did fail to see how she did it.
For where the sun shone through her luminous stride,
Vanishing the thin summer dress into a spider’s web of gossamer,
he was now struggling to glimpse the outline of her thighs
and the shadowed mysteries that accompanied them
through the wafer thin material of the dream,
with only moderate success.
© Mike Absalom
It was, as always, under the Magnolia Tree.
At first there were the usual clichés:
the staccato thud of Kalashnikov rosebuds
as she stitched him up,
and, for no extra consideration,
a free crown of thorns.
“Hide them in your jockey shorts,” she said.
“No one will know, and the discomfort
will force you to remember!”
“No,” he thought, “No, I shall go down.
I shall go down now.
I shall go down now and I shall fall, fall forever.
I shall fall like red wine
into the green and whistling serpent grass.
I shall fall like blue silent thunder,
mute with un-realization
I shall bleed back into the red earth
like an unwritten song.
I shall lie there, scarlet at first, and then crimson,
And then black and hard
in the green and whistling serpent grass.”
But then, although the green grass
throated its full funereal chorus
and chirruped till the cows came home,
surprisingly,
there was no movement on the part of the ground.
This time the earth did not move.
This time the ruddy, bloodied soil
did not rise to receive him.
There was no enfoldment.
He remained unclaimed,
like a discarded cigarette package, rather.
And so, I suppose, after a while
The bleeding stopped.
June arrived, you see.
June arrived with pre-meditation,
and stepped on his face.
That’s what happened.
It must have taken the nimble pace of a conjurer
To skip across the garden like that,
and in a trice change the colours
of the flowers.
And indeed he did fail to see how she did it.
For where the sun shone through her luminous stride,
Vanishing the thin summer dress into a spider’s web of gossamer,
he was now struggling to glimpse the outline of her thighs
and the shadowed mysteries that accompanied them
through the wafer thin material of the dream,
with only moderate success.
© Mike Absalom
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