Strange Famous

24-10-09

The rain came in from the east, in the early afternoon
The murderer sat staring at the wall, inside a bare and ugly kitchen
The blood long washed from his hands, his back turned to the room,
His wife and son hiding in the other room, but not admitting
That they were

Later, a whole history inbetween, the son cowered by the sea front
In the deep at night, hearing the call of the angry waves, trying to talk
Himself into walking all the way in. But he did not.
Seems a silly thing now, to walk into the black without return
Over some fat secretary, with a crooked bubble perm

The grandson I know well, for it is myself, and I think
To myself it must be the same time of year, but I cannot tell for sure,
That I sit here, drinking sour wine, finding clumsy words
That express a feeling deep inside that I cannot articulate
The rain still comes in from the east, the sea still beats the stones
On the cold wind broken beach, not many miles from here.

I paint my hands in red, but it cannot feel the same, I step outside
Slightly drunk in the early afternoon, uncertainly, I find my way
To the flood wall, smoke a cigarette. I stare at the water, timeless, stupid,
Lazy, and I throw my cigarette in, half smoked. Back inside, I sit
At the kitchen table, my back to the empty room, my
Phone turned off, my old grey stereo turned all the way up,
Distorting old jazz tunes.

I imagine a ghost, summoned by the river, walking straight inside
He see's my hunched up shoulders, he see's my piles of my books
A butterfly knife, never used, stting on the shelf. He see's a photograph
Of my girlfriend, smiling, standing beside another man, pinned up on the wall
Beside a poster he doesnt recognise, a Carravaggio. He sees a pile of litter
Spilling out of a supermarket plastic bag besides my left foot, a
Pornographic magazine, a half dead carton of cigarette's, a long dead
Bottle of wine.

He coughs, a nasty caustic sound, and the rain comes down harder
as if in sympathy. And the fat unfriendly figure at the desk
Does not turn around, although the hunch of his shoulder deepens
And his left hand flexes once or twice, in a gesture of melancholy.

The bad old ghost has long faded away when I stand at last, take
a glass of whiskey, smoke another cigarette - stare out the window
At the grey rain battered river with eyes I imagine, falsely,
Give nothing away.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas