Flectrum

It's that band, on tv, the song you hate, you made me click the switch, drain the screen, "kill it!"

Flaling your arms, cigarette bent, hanging from your thin lips.

Always Surprised it never fell on your bare legs, as you lay sprawled on the sofa, or burned eye holes holes, in your denim skirt .

" it brings out the worst in you, switch it off!"

Your eyes watered in your smoke, eyeliner ran into your lines.

An old mum looking older.

I let it die, went back to my grey room, waited for the next work day, cycled to work, cycled back.

Concrete repeated and encircled, then rain, I came back, fed microwaved lasagne and watched your programmes .

Things about dogs, soaps, from the north and the south and after , I sneak off to shower in silence.

Now I turn it up. I can listen, I sit on my new sofa, a living room with green walls, I smile, You hated green

They are back on my TV, that beat, that drawl, drag of heavy sludge tinged with oil, then the tap of my slippered toe, alive now, I've painted a few toe nails, I don't care if anybody sees .

The guitar oh that guitar!, plucking, pulling my diaphragm, the plectrum playing me, playing my strings, my muscles.

He's there look on the screen, the legend , the dirty blond hair, grunge, detroit bred, jeans soot soaked , grease from gears, machines, sweat , cement in the air, in his lungs, depressing, a pressing down, no wonder it ended the way it did.

I'm getting off the sofa, peeling myself off, I'm up, moving, heart beat and music as one, I'm letting my hair grow as I hang my head low, imagine I can feel it stretching out, like roots, I'm growing, oh! I can do their dance now, I have rhythm , head shaking, I'm heavy,

I move so much the cards sway in my breeze, I knock some of them off, then I assasinate each one, flick with finger and thumb, they 're on the floor, like dying insects, I see their condolences, 'in deepest sympathy....your dearest mother..poor Robert...dearest Robert...'

Out pourings of drivel and calligraphy.

Then the others behind them, standing sentinel, dwarved, hidden, mine 'happy 40th..life starts at 40....'

They fall.

I'm spinning now, dancing like a dervish, I'm dizzy, sick arms out, petals open, my roots grow, all the cards are on the floor.

The volume is on full.

I spin.