The Arrival Of The Guest House Proprietress’ Sequential Amoretto


Christopher Barnes



1
A car passed wide open gateposts, over gravel, a sound like steam gushing from a water drop. Swoop of firs, a parking square, calls of seven different birds, answered by its mate. With a clunk Mr Bellini took crisp air, light-headed. Newness of senses tingles, slow movement. He looked at bright sun light, greenery, the entrance to the big house.

2
She floated up stairs, pollen, silent soft slippers, past cracked veins, oil paintings. Wood furred dust, more animal than her sable-brushed fox, the wonky lion, top-hatted tamer, apple-red cheeks. At top level she slowed, shy of her ability to float. Rattling a key to room five between artless fingers she trod edges, worn rugs, an ordinary mortal.

3
Was it the corner seat that creaked air where its second arm would be? Weight of sun ageing tapestried cloth? Or was it that chair, a cushioned half-moon back, shifting its springs to take each mood of its braid? Unsettled today. The landing smelled as it always smelled, fried breakfasts, morning damp, when musky lovers rose to close the bathroom door; unfamiliar bodies gently submerging, slick of swirling soap.

~


View Through A Camera


her face is every face
and each time she melts
she is a different woman

in contemplation of the air
she lounges
on polystyrene rocks

the Biba mannequin
sighs of boredom
and an empty heart

a thrill of froth
gathers at her feet
and the window becomes a canvas

with a flicked lizard tongue
she licks the latest tune
as it cascades moistening

laying in the crevices
she feels herself flatten
splintering into drizzle

she awakes a glistening minnow
dying on the shore
glinting an eye at the sun

~


‘tis the season to be jolly


The clap and slam
of kitty-eyed marbles
over orange-pink and purplish wagon wheels
of a polyester bedroom rug,
shallow cut as gossamer threads,
a one-dimensional, under rub to on-ice air.

Blasts skim the nonstick door,
back up from lilac skirting,
rat-tat-tatting a grey-glass window,
that sash with a buckshot peephole
condensing powdery snow.

He was a prettyboy pocketmouse, I clinched
into the mousebox, monofilament eyebrows,
epileptic whiskers,
a gnaw of indifference
to cuddlesome nerves of fur.

Blanched on the fire–
I’d been black-sheepishly forgetful,
“it’s dead, it’s dead,” I screamed,
blind to the mask of hibernation.

~


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