Thursday, 06 June 2013
1:06 PM
‘…a morning of many tempos – pleasant sunshine and a graceful arrival in the crowsnest, a contemplative shower; yet, the insistent repetition of the alarm clock was a portent. On arriving downstairs, I have to confront, singlehandedly, a defiant and barren hen about to ravish the spinach. Staged mayhem results in a cleaning frenzy of the clutter below and the retreat of Sloth in a Huff to her coop after having to do something…’
Popeye spent the rest of the morning ambulating on the zimmer between house and garden: stretching parchment legs, listening to Beethoven, smoking tabs, avoiding dogshit, avoiding humanshit, relaying coffee cups…result: relaxed exhaustion and sunny alienation in the atmosphere of poisoned, silent dispinachment…
He was known to live life dissipated:
Gambolling in crazed buffonery,
Guzzled half a modest brewery.
When his liver, bored, emigrated.
My Uncle Head was steadfast and insistent:
‘Feed me!’ he yelled ‘Til I’m wild euphoric.’
For a pint of gin, no tonic: chronic.
So immaculated homeward: distant.
Ten Afton and a quart of Barleycorn,
stern tea and two, too loud radios
Unwelcomed him the very next morning
as he dimly recalled Jack de Mannio,
gave up on a shower and yawning,
levitated outsidewards to soil the patio.
Back inside he trawled in his shotaway head
and dredged up from its slum, the aviator,
Louis Blerio, who, a century and
one day ago, fetched lobster thermidore
and ate it for breakfast on England.
Head sloooshed a tuft of dog and considered
The perilous return voyage while his liver withered.