My Mirror Lies To Me

My Mirror lies to me.

Honest.

Instead of showing me my face, it shows me a

Forest.

Full of hyacinths, daisies and daffodils, a veritable Garden of Eden

So why aren’t they all there when I need them

Roaming the streets of London

Westminster, Angel and EC1,

The ears stand down to Gould, Ravel and Lennon

The eyes have it: as they pass there is a moment

Of the everlasting approach, as they encroach

On my person.

Look down, look left, look right

But even using all of my might

The image I remembered

So full of smoulding embers

Is long gone: every one a faceless judge

Until my brain turns to sludge

And my fears and worries do their star turn

In rubies, emeralds and Armani

My own creation, my own evil army

Hey remember, remember when you cried in the street?

When you tripped over your own feet?

Once again, my brain, now sleet, turns against me.

Dances, pirouettes around me, wearing my face of Eve,

Wiping my eyes now on my sleeve,

Poking, prodding: the judges have long since disappeared

And yet they were just the appetizer, what I honestly feared

Takes it’s bejeweled bow, shimmies, winks at me

Honestly and truthfully, my mirror lies to me.

Gomme

     The street was filled with worn spheres of gum. Thousands. Millions of gumdrops across man made streets. Gum sticks on lips. Lipstick. How many mouths is that? How many cocks sucked? Cocks crowned with lingering lip-gloss residue. Gloss carefully applied, wiped and reapplied. Touched up in mirrors and window fronts at Christmas time. While mulled wine is made in bars. Armies of Santa’s migrate in fancy dress flocks. Bands playing. And gum chewed before a kiss under the mistletoe. Discarded while entering the bar.

     How many cunts licked with a gum tinged tongue? For the first lick of the night and the last lick of a last licking in a woman’s life. On a hot night in June when all that was left after that was penetrative sex in a soft way. How many Mothers kissed? In deathbeds and on first days outside school gates. When it was inappropriate in front of friends or passed up because it was would have felt strange to kiss your mother after you had just got off with a girl or a guy, or both in the same night.

      How many words spoken by those mouths? When not chewing and while chewing. When chewing the chocolate in the end of a Cornetto and while chewing the stubborn fat from undercooked bacon. Words shouted in an ear at a concert and words whispered in the attic of a house party. Words tossed about without meaning. Words drunk up by masses. Words chewed up and regurgitated. Words which have been said over and over but now have new meaning. Words which cut. Words which cut away and cut a way- a new path. Words which sound false but are true. Words nonsensical. Words diabolical. Words obscure and hiding. Words which dominate a prayer.

Mouths which have drunk water and beer. Lips that have been coated by the invisible dust of a moth flitting round a room. Mouths cut by fish bones. Or busted on slide sides. Mouths which have blown up balloons and deflated egos. Words which have disgusted the elderly. The few. The majority. Mouths which scar mouths with words and communicate scar tissue. Mouths that have tasted snot on a cold morning. Or laid on the sofa in a hot evening with flu. Mouths that have asked to “Leave the light on” or “Open wide”. Mouths that have eaten grass… Just to see. Or licked the leather of a baseball and  a belt but at different ages. Mouths that have been bust and bled. The same mouths that have tasted something of blood in oysters.

Seki Lynch

A piece omitted from a work in progress.