Sparky Dashforth's Open Salon Blog

Shadow Boxing with My Son

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:08:01 -0400

When did you last see me?
God knows --- wait, it was on a Tuesday
I changed your diaper.....I can still smell your shit.
And then?
Well there were times you know. Flashes,
you at four, being introduced to me again.
At six, finger-painting.
I don't remember that.
It was the evening I came back
from everywhere.
You at ten years old
when I dragged you back to school,
ready to kill the headmaster.
You scared the hell out of everyone.
The long country walks we took.
Dawn until dusk, each trying to out walk the other,
until I would finally relent
and you would shrug as if you were not tired.
Your sixteen year old smirk as you lied to me
about everything.
Your seventeen year old drugged sorrow.
You graduating inside of a camera I held up
to cover my face.
Saw you last, of course, at the airport,
it was on a Wednesday and as as gray as hell.
I was there for you most of the time.
The walking helped.
Yes.

Rulers

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:08:29 -0400

After our first taste of measuring,

we knew learning was not for us.

Following the first thwack

from our classroom's ruler,

some deduced that distance was

limited primarily

to unpredictable bursts of anger,

arbitrary chastisement factors.

The rule, all twelve of its commandments

plus the extra uncalibrated ends -

a fixed caliber, lengthened enough

to break beyond its reach.

Zing!

Wood or perspex fractions stung,

until lips began to measure escape

in eighths and sixteenths,

then when the metric side

turned toward our knuckles,

we understood that the rod, the yardstick,

probably the world,

had been calibrated to the ump-teenth

by inchworms.

~~~

Irish Dripping

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:08:42 -0400

After several vegetarian meals I stopped dreaming.

A part of me searched city dumpsters,

another aspect sat on a high roof

and could only be seen by gusty wraiths.

I walked and talked, but my animal self

had lost the power to swim in the rain.

I longed to be able to dream again.

After the Irish pork sausage

I bought at a country fair

(I conveyed it gently home in silver wrappings.

Fried it slowly in its own greasy tears

and consumed it on the back of a snuffling fork),

I had a new dream.

That night I roamed the heavens.

Black robed trees grunted as they rooted

for a suckling starlight.

My viand thickened with all sorts of drippings.

A suet of soul. A fat goose of being

flew through moist visions.

I had quite forgotten the dry and meatless.

Sometime near to the dewy breath of dawn

I awoke with words in my wet mouth.

Lost

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:08:20 -0400

I lost you in the food store;

I walked down several aisles

looking for you.

I could not remember

what you were wearing.

I could not recall your face.

I had to trace a line

in the palm of my hand.

I had to stop still

and wait for my body

to catch up.

Elephant Man

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:08:11 -0400

Every few weeks I would move

from one city room to another.

I had only a tartan suitcase.

I would depart, travel one stop

on the London Underground,

to find a corner shop.

Corner shops

were where elephants went

to find their mouse holes.

The city had many corners.

Providing you had the rent,

a corner hole could be found.

Nowadays elephants

have much fewer options.

The cities are overrun

with elephant hunters and handlers.

If your ears or trunk cannot be hidden,

you will be asked to report

to an elephant rehabilitation center.

A therapy plan will be devised,

or you will have to join the circus.

In those days

if you carried a tartan bag

and kept moving,

people thought you were selling something.

People always need something

back then they were very specific,

they needed someone to blame.

After a few weeks in rented rooms,

the landlord would grow suspicious.

Life became difficult.

Leaving a note of warning for the mice,

I would pack my soft suitcase

and disappear.

~~~