A.P.
Chambers
Plasticine
Meagre
sightless Tiresias,
I dress him in his paper suit-
Of Ochre.
Fumbling, while he caresses his
Coffee into lather.
He
tells me in his mystic tone,
“The milk has grown old, fetch another!”
I gaze into that face,
Spider webs stretch their way-
From his eyes and across his face
And down his arms.
They race to his long nailed fingers,
That stir his coffee, absent mindedly
With a silver spoon.
Knowing
my eyes are on his face,
A
voice: whispered in bitter chocolate,
“Please don’t stare at me with that look.
I have known it on every face.
The pity, the confusion.
The self importance, the delusion.
It won’t earn them a place at god’s side”
Eyes
squinted; I look at him this being,
Who has been both man and woman.
He who has lived many generations,
With both fear and adoration.
“You know that I told him,
The little man in a powdered wig,
“Everyman will have fifteen minutes.”
And I was right for even he,
Turned that upon me.
To ensure that he had his own, for being-
Both a prophet and an illusion.”
To the
vaunted heights of fame,
To the painful obscurity,
And I would do anything to rekindle
The fire that was so easy to put out.
I have read in magazines so full of
Glossy pictures, of fame without talent.
I could so easily take that just to see my
Name lit on the walls of tower blocks.
Knowing
I am no good,
I am no good.
I
go.
Knowing
I am no good,
I am no good.
For I
have watched Ophelia drown,
From a vantage point; of coffee cups and broken saucers.
She wailed and she thrashed.
Pretty pale features, eloquent but in gloom.
The
only weight on my conscience then-
Was my plasticine children,
Whom I
could crush with one hand,
Like the brave and the
foolish.
Tiresias said they would
die!
And for
what?
A
flag of, stripes gently starred!
Or!
The
idea of people oppressed?
My
dear Plasticine children,
I am no good,
I am no good.
Should I go for milk?
Perhaps I am not even able for
that!
I am
not able, nor am I any good!
And
Tiresias waits, blind and cold.
His paper suit of stars and
stripes,
Burning. His paper suit of Ochre
fading.
And my
Plasticine children in my sweaty palm,
Crushed like mulch. Like poor
Ophelia, I watched drown.
I am
not able.
I am no good.
He is no prophet.
And I am no god.
To
the cavalcade,
To the
cavalcade.
I
lost them there,
To the fanfare and the
drums,
Their jubilant pretty
faces,
Sun burnt and scarred.
And
Tiresias waits, blind and cold.
His paper suit of stars and
stripes,
Singing hallelujah,
hallelujah.
He has just been visited from god
above.
Their jubilant and pretty faces,
Sun burnt and scarred-
I made them with my own
hands,
From old bones and old
lust.
My
plasticine children for whom-
I was no good.
“...our affection for them grows
faint,
Because we ourselves are
dying.”
My
children, scarred, deluded-
I lost them in
confusion,
To war and the cavalcade
moving.
Tiresias said I would lose
them,
And to what?
Nothing that I myself couldn’t
have concluded.
Pretty faces, I take them back.
Summer sun, sultry
afternoon,
The beach, the sand, the sea so
blue.
My plasticine
children...
And
Tiresias waits, blind and cold.
His paper suit of stars and
stripes,
He tells me in his mystic
tone,
“The milk has grown old, fetch
another!”
I gaze into that face,
Spider webs stretch their
way-
From his eyes and across his
face
And down his arms.
They race to his long nailed
fingers,
That stir his coffee, absent
mindedly
With a silver
spoon.
But
I am not able.
I am no good.
He is no prophet.
And I am no
god.
A.P.
Chambers is a writer from Belfast, County Antrim Northern
Ireland.
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