Disintegrated Thing

by David Mister

Here I go, disintegrated thing,
cut-up of a glossy rumour mag,
a chewed cassette-tape, bankrupt entity;
a mangled game of hopscotch, leaping wildly
this to mediocre that; hunger’s purpose,
lust’s inept contrivance; trivia’s dancer,
prima donna of a teabag ballerina.

Wandering, amalgam of disparities,
senses choc-a-bloc with evanescence,
the change of things immediate and utile,
the wholly wanting what’s in front
that isn’t what was wanted just before:
a beefburger because it’s there,
a book because the price seems low,
a girl because she speaks into a phone
softly, and smiles as if she always smiles.
Wandering, as if, as if, as if.

A sparrow on a wall might slow me,
or brambles twining through a rusted bike wheel,
or a man with a cart spiking up wrappers,
if only I remembered when I saw them;
a glazed cobweb, a hunkered ginger spider,
swans on a river guarding a canoeist,
squirrels playing up and round a tree,
all these might slow me, if I could remember.

But more often, here I go,
a jittery, scratched recording, full of hiss,
a tyre the air is seeping from,
a pebble travelling via one hundred boots;
one question, with one thousand must-get answers.
All is now, and now must not get slow.

An oozing chrysalis - I cannot stop -
hello, it’s good to meet you - have to go -
a strange shell on a shore - I’ll hear you later -
plain, sad guitar strums - I need food.
The radio switched on at every wavelength,
the TV too, chaotic separation
determining importance at a whim.
With voices variously modulated
emoting without cease on love or anger,
though not forgetting advert-stabs of now,
those spicing frivolities.