Hecale

A Portal For Writers


FOUL PLAY


Sorry stitches saving nine & a half dames
& nits from a fate more dull than dire

Blonde hairs found in clothes, in the carpet
in sheets, on the keyboard even if I knew

Better I'd say it was black magic driving
down something, something salt or snow? An illusion

Of promise & torture surfeit to say nothing
remembers my mind. The language decided

To have enough be the root of sad
all the live long day cousin

Buttercup & Aunt Amanda party it up
on the verandah & no-one is ever the wiser.

Home for the Disenchanted; read poets. Home
for Ribald & Abusive Personages; read skald

Read poet. As Sanctioned By Language.
don't ask for anything we'll give you

What we can, here's my number
as if he forsees I will need

It, a freshly-bit victim
when the Thirst starts

In the bulges of the brain
an oyster irritated produces

A barroco. I produce
this, this, this ; Reade und Weepe

All this time a conspiracy
it amazes to conceal good poetry
uncovered
& there's me thinking it didn't exist.


(Previously published in The Grimoire of Grimalkin, November 2007)

©Sascha Akhtar 2007-2008

VALHALLA


I

Sufferin' jehosaphats
jumpin' snakeskin
jambalaya & the crow leapt
over the wickets, shake a leg & miss
the boat anyway curses!

De bread she is de spoiled
again, gotta cut off the green bits
to make toast for tea & dare say
we something as passé as
je ne sais quois & it's off wid her head
just for sport like the Norman
who hunts peacocks.

Bad business this, I tell you
clean out of my head it's gone
now where was I? Ah yes horticulture
& torture together again like old enemies
who have kissed & made up, that rings a bell

Won't catch me potting a goddamn thing
& what of a person with no thumbs at all
neither green nor black, just void
& the world becomes your mussel
except you loathe mussels

With the same grand passion that you long
for that bloody man tenaciously
but somehow, somehow
it always seems wrong.

There is not a scratch of purity
in the emotion, not a thimble’s worth
& for the life of you
you just can't figure it out like most things,
in the middle of the night
when figuring outings are made.


II

Sufferance, a fine line that shiver me
timbre, miss or hit a glistening
dangerous chit circa through the ages
of gall & gumption, not lacking
in the least bit.

Sie ist meine Schwester
& I think she's ugly.
Better you than me
on occasion is felt joie
in a safely guarded, controlled
environment they like to tell us
how the water's running out.
What did they think?
That it wouldn't?

& the bijli
that is in short supply apparently
this comes as no shock
Hephaestus is no human ally
Ra signed no contract
to provide power to Earth

Mammy Nature is way past
a woman’s prime, at this juncture
The sea is going to become
one cataclysmic cesspool
we do away with anyone
who knows the ways
of the land right off the bat.

Creatures doomed
to state the obvious
what a plight for
pillocks!


III

Bedknobs & bromide
on the nightstand is the Grimoire
a sweet dream for the glazed-eyed.
I long for the lekjas to appear again
in all his vainglory so I can pull
at his robes & denounce him
for the imposter that he is, like a scream
in an anechoic chamber
suspended, I pretend
to sleep with Odin.



(Previously published in The Grimoire of Grimalkin, November 2007)

©Sascha Akhtar 2007-2008

ABACUS


On the most exalted throne in the world,
nothing but your arse - Montaigne

A whole lot of prattle
& beef, the suckling it were let
to reign terror on the supper table
it were. The funniest little black ting
you ever sat eyes on
& what a howlin'
& what a moanin' cooms
from the deaf dalmatian
not a dog but a right cow it were

A-twirlin' thats tail
till we's be right dizzy
plenty of work to go
a-roamin' in the streets
for idle hands there be, no use
pretendin' to be afeard mawther
curly hair be the death of virtue
the time is gettin' oover for you

If you hain't guessed by now
oo yer fader is then ya ne'er will it
right lies in his eyes, melancholia
in his spleen, frail fancy
he's a-ridin' his hobby towards ya
that as gonned you life, me pale wee iele
Kred-dhe put you
them there corsets on & bustle
Queen Mab & the laidley worm
will come a-knockin'
eft soons for the St.Vitus'
dance of the crow moon.

Mind your humours now,
be pure & clean
don't want no mud-bloods
just the phrenzied
the mad & mean.

Silly puss
sluts are loathesome to fairies



(Previously published in The Grimoire of Grimalkin, November 2007)

©Sascha Akhtar 2007-2008