The Acid of Accidie: Raps and Poems by Antoine Tarser - HTML preview

 

Lost in another time

 

In their frozen faces

 

They�re trying to thank you

 

For the sweets and presents

 

The sixpences

 

that became fivers

 

I always wrote back to tell you

 

What I had bought

 

I bought you flowers

 

I know you would have liked them

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNTITLED

 

Fall from this ledge

Let go and fall

The rocks below will catch you

They�ll yield and nurture you

 

Let them rearrange you

Feel your blood return to the sea

Feel the joy in the dead-eyed gulls�

Unexpected discovery

 

Drop the act

Don�t try any more

Cut the strings and drop

The pointless fight with gravity

 

Flesh on stone

A strong percussive melody

As atoms reunite again

In grateful similarity

�

 

 

 

 

 

STILL LOOKING THROUGH WINDOWS (FOR MUM)

 

I look in the mirror

 

To see your eyes

 

My nose and lips

 

Are yours

 

I look beyond the mirror

 

To find you

 

Not knowing where you�ve gone

 

I see only me

 

I remember waving to you

 

When you walked away

 

I remember the huge windows

 

And you getting smaller, disappearing

 

My heart was in my mouth

 

As the world closed in on me

 

 

You always came back

 

I know you never left me

 

Your love protected me

 

You always came back

 

To take me home

 

I drifted in a world I never understood

 

Trying to find a direction

 

I couldn�t find what I was supposed to be

 

Fought with invisibility

 

You were always there for me

 

There never was anyone but you

 

Who understood me

 

Still looking through windows

 

I wave but you�re no longer there

 

Disappeared and not coming back this time

 

So I search for you in myself

 

Find your heart still beating in mine

 

Put my arms around myself

 

And wait, pretending you�re coming back

 

To take me home again

 

 

 

 

 

SKULL

 

Beneath this face grins a skull,

 

Beaming out through the soil of my skin

 

Its big empty orbits seeing nothing

 

Its huge mandible, a mockery of laughter

 

All the flesh gone, it stares nearly forever,

 

Jaw dropping open in amazement

 

For three thousand years

 

A mad smile of indifference

 

Lies waiting for an archaeologist

 

To put my pieces together

 

Tenderly holding my head

 

In his hands

 

Saying who I was

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until that day

 

My skull lies undiscovered

 

Undisturbed, Untouched

 

By boot or plough

 

Watching the centuries go by

 

From beneath the ground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTOS

 

 

Something silent and empty between the photos

 

Two children on the beach with the sun shining

 

And beer waiting in the fridge like kind old relatives

 

I look back at the summer as if there never could be another

 

one

 

I lit the candles on the cake and you said

 

�There�s something sad about birthdays�

 

So I�m not the only one to feel this

 

My camera at it again, turning now into yesterday

 

Freezing time, turning us into statues,

 

Exhibits that, like embalmed pharaohs

 

Live on long after we�ve all gone

 

Between the sunny days, the walk in our favourite garden

 

When the warm coffee cup cools and we go home

 

 

I grab the evening like a duvet to hide in

 

 

 

 

 

WALKING HOME, DRUNK

 

 

Strange

 

The pavement under my feet

 

The bright plastic lights in the middle of the road

 

I�m walking upright

 

A leap of nature taken in my stride

 

Dim light seeps into my eyes

 

I�m smiling inside

 

Drinking in my ignorance

 

Like the last pint I had

 

My feet churn beneath me

 

A vague, miles-away fear of attack

 

I defy and smile

 

Waiting for the fist or knife

 

I walk towards the light

 

Of the kitchen window