SELECTED POETRY

by
Rob Marshall

A HISTORY OF GENOCIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND: #13 THE METROPOLITAN LINE

From rusting railway sidings,
they untangle the suicide from steel wheels.
I can see his socks, orange and blue,
as he’s folded into a body bag.
On the concourse, commuters grumble
and turn clock face to stone.
I think a hearse is gliding towards me -
but all at once, a host of commuters battle for a cab.

Touch the rails
and touch the neurosis of an edgy City.
I wouldn’t choose to die in such socks.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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WE’RE ALL EUROPEAN NOW

My tongue between her legs, my lisp singing.
The hem of her crimson dress a napkin.
Earlier, at the bar, the hem slapped leather boot –
and she caught my bloodshot stare, staring.
She spoke of neighbour slaying neighbour
of a human abattoir in the woods where she once played.
All the time my eyes bore through crimson to the bone.

Suddenly mute, she dribbled red wine from her wound.

As fireweed splays woodland, faces distend from her wall -
swollen by my curiosity. I do not ask.
I cum on her dress prematurely, and leave.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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SWEENEY TODD’S RAZOR IS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Ballerinas of flesh curl up the blade
as it trawls through skin.
Shirt sleeves hide guilty pleasure:
a secret affair with the knife.
Press the wound against faceless secretaries,
to inhale pain and cheap perfume.
I once built a Hospital from Lego –
and imagined myself, dying, in there.

From what blocks built this bedsit?
I shall not die in here.
From the office, we can see St Paul’s Cathedral.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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A BOURGEIOS BEAUTY AND ME UNDER A TREE

A thick arrow through Hampstead à WE ARE HERE.
Sheets of mist swathe the Heath, wind rattles through
emphysemic copses. There’s bones in them Ponds and
I am here à lost on your page somewhere.

I will not nibble your canopies
laugh at your husband’s farts
or drink claret on the patio where your children will play.

In the Spaniards Inn, ale clay-red, lamenting Regents Park:
the cadence of your whispered words, inexplicably French,
as fingers uncorked the driest fruit under dusty Oak.

This affair, my love, was mere dew on the Earth’s crust
and one Winter you will be as lonely as cancer.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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NEVER HOLD HER

There is no home for this unrequited stuff.
It just exists.
Like mortality,
or the wind crashing through an empty house.
Like being lost in the country at night:
No land. No landmark.
Only the outline
Of the black and solid hills
Stretching further and beyond.

Like being in love with your best friend’s wife.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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RATTLE OF GLUE

That night,
we sniffed enough glue
to stick the stars together.
Her cracked lips
were the most beautiful thing.
‘I love you,’ whispered softly,
but words died on my cold mouth
and her head was asleep
on the furthest lap.

That night,
lust stuck the stars to the sky
and I learnt the longest walk home.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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TALE OF A BRICK

Another cheating b@stard!
Sheila replaces the cosmetics
in her handbag with a brick
and hits town.

Closing time, rich pickings.
Amongst a skein of blood and sirens,
Colin sees a handbag on the floor.

Colin’s girlfriend wakes from
C.S.A and diazepam dreams.
On the sofa, a handbag,
so Tracey dips.
She could build some modern art
or a wedge for the wobbly cot.
Tracey likes to talk about the weather with her Mother
but there’s a blizzard in the kitchen
and a storm in her cranium.

She brings the brick crashing down.

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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DREAM MAKER

At night – asleep –
Alison’s dreams are
scattered
across the bedroom wall
like grainy cine film

No sound from
this nocturnal soap opera -
just the hum of
Alison sleeping
and the somnolent
rhythm of the City

At the foot of the bed
I wait for the cinema of insomnia to begin

Amber streetlights
steal through
curtains

Alison’s legs up and apart -
remind me
we touch like skeletons
in a dusty museum

On her back on the edge of her dreams
amber streetlights caress her

Lights – Camera – Action

Alison dreams in colour

She dreams of ivory shoes on a bone staircase
crashing planes
paper-mouths kissing
children burning
the house on the moon

I recognise places and faces
but in this landscape
blurred & disjointed

Of late she dreams of
a handsome man
they hold hands, kiss and touch
Alison gurgles -
legs up and apart

I do not know him
It is not me

I sleep during the day

But do not dream

Evening brings cold sunshine
Along the High Road
Sirens sing a nursery rhyme for the damned –
Ripping through the still night
Like a chainsaw through water

Behind a fridge magnet
a polaroid
then another
and another
It is not me

At the foot of the bed
I wait

Alison dreams in colour

She dreams of bone shoes on an ivory staircase
planes crashing
mouths kissing paper
burning children
the moon in the house

T ndse ppea
Th ndsom mappes
The h ndsome man a pears

I want to shake her awake
And ask who he is

I can’t
I’m dead

She wouldn’t see this ghost on our bed

It is not me

© Rob Marshall
Reproduced with permission

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