3:AM Magazine

By Miggy Angel.

The Message

If you stay at home long enough
a wonderful thing shall happen

Your hair will mat into a glazed crown

Your nose-hair will splay
its four sacred tresses
to illustrate the compass

Your fingernails will grow
around corners & spy on neighbours

Your feet will become a silent kingdom
resplendent with vegetation

In your beard’s black length
shall be read the zodiac, & evidence
of your eating habits

Your armchair will respond
to your curvature’s signature
repelling all others

A large black crow
will fly thru your window
with a message tied to its leg

 

Beholden

I see Zeus
waiting in the checkout
queue. Fallen
on hard times, yet
still magnificent

His striking, aquiline
profile, that white mane
a staircase to heaven

Stuffing sausage-rolls
in his pockets

His eyes fixed, shiftily
on the shelves
of Greek yoghurt

 

The Workshop

I take the thirteen
dead rodents, hard
as asteroids

I take the big book
with the mule-leather
tunic, the ivy spine
The dead deity

I take the nails
The bloodied nails
The famous nails

With these categories
I make my bed

Give me the coat
of the dead philosopher
The coat of silver
The steel overcoat
in which all movement
is measured

Now, to lay down
Eyes wide as thought

Present & correct
for another mortal shift
in the black workshop
where keys are cut
for doors, which
do not exist

 

The Tenure

The Time has come, the way it comes around
That is, silently, unannounced

Upon the quiet padded feet of mice
the Time shall leave its hole

in a dusty skirting board
& enter the room in which

stagnation & television reign
The first you know of it is when the wires

display those teeth marks
The mantelpiece & its deities

of your family ephemera
are charged with a spirit of disorder

The saucer of milk empties itself
& you with no cat!

The Time has arrived to tighten your belt
To lace your boots, straighten your spine

Sharpen your tonsil. Now, utter the one word left
& surrender your tenure

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Miggy Angel is the orphan son of the old widow Thames river, a golden nugget grown in the belly of the earth, his bible’s the book of odes to ephemera, his religion is wonder, the starry night is his church. He walks the gangway of the age, a smile stitched with stardust & urban detritus. He blogs here.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Thursday, March 3rd, 2011.