King Size (Ten Tons)
bring back, bring back, O bring back my Lenny to me, to me
bring back, bring back, O bring back my Lenny to me
some say he was buried under a courtyard
some say he was buried under a pit pit pit
but I know what my Lenny was buried under
he was buried under ten tons of
shine your buttons with Brillo
its only three ha’pence a tin tin tin
you can buy it or nick it from Woolworth’s
but I don’t think they’ve got any in in in
there was nothing left of him except a (tiny) wishbone
I only kept blunt knives in the house
after he flew away
also
my mouth shrank
the days were steep and sweltering
I was always trudging
going places I’d never seen before
with no sense of direction
asking strangers for the way
they never knew
we were all lost
heads bowed
trudging
I turned back the clocks
I was eighteen years old again
standing on the platform at Highbury & Islington
this time around I was slim
and I hadn’t smeared white pearlised cream eye make-up all over my face
in fact
I was wearing Dior Icon Barely There foundation
meticulously applied with sponges
dusted with translucent powder
by the way
you could smoke on the underground in those days
so
I sparked up a pristine white King Size
suckered my final drag
shot my arms out straight
leaned forward
and
minding the gap
dived into a brighter future
see?
I am not a suicide
I am a cultivator of the art of mourning
the dreaded black column on your doorstep
head in my hands
shaking with grief
an encyclopedia of bereavement
weeping in town and country
well known as a wailer
foretelling deaths
easing departures
with practical, labour-saving solutions
plus
ten trusty fingernails
scratching you livid
until
you
be
deaded
In life, Auntie Violet bit her nails to the raw bleeding stumps, betraying the chaos beneath her otherwise shag-piled perfection.
In death, Auntie Violet kept her nails sharp and pointed – ten razors slashing at arms length, or drawn in close to her ribs with bent elbows and much grimacing, making spooky shadows on the walls outside my house. Violet was weeping on my doorstep, predicting my death before Christmas, scratching her grief graffiti into the glosswork of my yellow front door, shredding my junk mail, tearing her hair out, digging her fingernails into her Barely There cheeks, clawing runnels of red in parallel lines down her face and wiping her bum on my welcome mat.
Haunted by the threat of losing my mind and with it much of my status I was ready to exorcise Violet: I unfurled my skins, licked them in all the right places, arranged them in all the best positions, spread tobacco in a worm’s length down the fold and scattered her ashes on top – judicious, malicious – I sealed the white tube, stuck in a roach, lit up, leaned back, got a lung-full.
Get it?
I disappeared her
like yesterday’s dog-end
my
my
my Lenny’s a lavatory cleaner
he cleans by day and by night
(and by night)
and when he comes home in the evening
he’s covered all over in
shine your buttons with Brillo
its only three ha’pence a tin
you can buy it or nick it from Woolworth’s
but I don’t think they’d let you in in in
There’s no such thing as a bad entry from Penny. My hat’s off to you!
Heikki is right. And King Size is your best yet. With this, you’re fulfilling your promise, emerging as a major writer.
Super, some fabulous images there, great flow of language, as we expect.
There are too many good lines in this to pick them all out, but I especially liked,
” betraying the chaos beneath her otherwise shag-piled perfection”
and
“an encyclopedia of bereavement”
A lyrical and literal maze of epic proportions. Absolutely love it…
Stunning, stunning, STUNNING!
I love this entire triptych.