scissors and glue

I need tape
and paint
and paper
and glue

and you.

New Heights

Last night I dreamt the strangest dream; I dreamt you were the Eiffel Tower. I climbed and climbed to kiss your lips and halfway there, about your hips, dreamt words of love trickled down to reach my ears while I grasped your fingertips. Pushing through the tourists admiring Paris from your chest, I went on to climb your collarbone, your neck, and right at the sight of your curls a flutter of butterflies unfurled. My eyes met your grin and while my feet furrowed a foothold onto your chin, I reached onto my toes and kissed your lips with my lips, and nudged your nose with my nose

Promises

Nervous, with big eyes, we stared. I, on your lap, you with a cigarette clinging to your lips, your arms around my neck. The smoke rising up and around stung my eyes a little, but I did not even whimper as the fur around my eyes became tear-streaked.

I know you were thinking back to that day when I had playfully killed a snowy-white duck, and amid the fluster of feathers, you had picked me up with a horror-stricken look in your eye. You had just witnessed a side of me you did not know existed, while I had also, quite gleefully, just discovered this side of myself. You might say I was feeling a little mad with power at that moment when you picked me up, away from what I now understand was my victim.

I recognized that same glint in your eyes today as you clutched onto me tightly. But I swear I am innocent! I’d learned my lesson the last time. I know it was wrong. That was the trade-off; all the joys of domestication in return for repressing this wilder nature, and of course wearing the occasional diamond necklace, or those seasonal antlers at Christmas time. But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with that decapitated pigeon lying under the table in the backroom, next to your favourite slippers.

And then he found her

It took two hours and a bloody nose, but he found her. With mixed emotions, he closed his eyes, walked through the door and held the long white strip of card delicately by his nose, inhaling deeply, travelling through time and space. Until he opened his eyes on the exhale and began his walk home through the five o’clock Saturday shopping crowd.

GOSSIP

She said She said She saw Him and Her kissing. Him kissing Her while He has a girlfriend. She loves Him very much. Her kissing Him while She has a boyfriend. He loves Her very much. Kissing in a dark corner of the café while He is His best friend. While He lives a staircase below Him and Her. She and He hold hands out the door while He is left up three flights of stairs, alone with a TV and no credit on his telephone. She wonders if He knows about Him and Her, about Her and Him. She said She said She saw Her seeing Her and Him. Do She and He know She told Her, that She knows about Him and Her and what they’re doing to Her and Him?

Blink and you miss it

“Roar roar purrrrr!” Shouted the lion. Rearing his head, he cast his gaze upwards to the sky above. He turned a few heads who looked disapprovingly round, shushing him for the ruckus he made. Most pretended not to have noticed, for it was common knowledge not to indulge the king of the jungle’s cries for attention and adoration. And so went the day that the angel came down and offered the world the most beautiful song ever heard, and no one noticed but the lion, who had tried to warn everyone and who only really heard half of it because of the buzz of conversation and shushing that filled his royal ears.

‘Liberty Inviting Artists to Take Part in the 22^nd Exhibition of the Societe Des Artistes Independants’

Henri Rousseau

Back in the day, when ladies were ladies and dogs flew away...

I remember when ladies were ladies, and dogs flew all day, the birds lived in fear of the winged little hounds who'd hover by nests and howl through the treetops. But then as the ladies grew tired of cleaning the ceilings of dog fur and mud, they tempted the little winged hounds back to the ground with big bowls of meat, and leashed them tight so they'd get used to more temperate heights. The easy meat and lack of exercise went straight to their paunches and soon they could barely hover above the ground. Now they dragged in the mud all over the floors, but the ladies thought, "at least we don't have to climb up a ladder to clean the ceiling anymore."

He was a reformed cat burglar,

He was a reformed cat burglar. He’d done his time, he’d picked up carpentry and he was on the straight and narrow. But sometimes memories of past thrills on roof tops, balancing by window sills and clutching onto gutters flooded his thoughts. On such days, he would cancel his appointments and drive through the streets, scouting out high up places.

When he found a run down window, crooked on its hinges with flaky patches of paint and crumbling corners of rotting wood, and high enough to satisfy his cat burglar standards, he would screech to a stop. He’d strap on his belt, stretch his old balaclava over his head (it still fit like a glove!) and so he’d start his ascent, heart racing, grinning like a fool in love. Once he reached the window, he checked out the cracks and gaps in its frame, pushing here and there with his left hand whilst clutching the roof tiles with his right. Then he would take out his tools and begin his work, perched on the gutters, no scaffolding to diminish the thrill. He would glance round nervously to make sure no one caught him sanding down the wood, filling in the holes, resetting the window, repainting the frames, and securing the roof tiles, until the window looked good as new and he sneakily descended back to his van unseen.

A seemingly inevitable, but unfortunate event.

The loud frightened gasps disturbed the quiet Sunday morning air. That moment each one of them shared the same thought, and chills ran up and down the seven rigid spines that trailed Louis the Horse. Patches the Dog (who enigmatically had no patches in his pitch-black coat) spotted the little thing first. Bert's eyes glanced down at it, causing his hands to tighten on Louis's reigns. Frank, seated next to Bert, and a pessimist at heart, had already resigned himself to the terrible event that was about to ensue. Mary, together with her pet koala, froze at the thought, and Elizabeth tried to shield little Louise from the inevitable bloodshed.
Each one of them, including Charles the Koala (who was notoriously short-sighted), had spotted the tiny little puppy precariously ambling by Louis's left leg, and their thoughts jumped simultaneously to Louis's blinders, his clumsy and graceless tread, and how to wash blood out of pristenely white fur.

'Old Junier's Cart'
Henri Rousseau

I found a boy on the rocks

I found a boy on the rocks.

His politician's parting negated his cherub lips,

And though he appeared lost, out of place,

I saw, beneath his cape, a cage,

And ran ran ran, til break of day,

Lest he should trap - and steal me away.









'Boy on the Rocks' - Henri Rousseau

No no, it wouldn't do.

He, a high ranking army officer. She, a scarecrowette with luscious, if somewhat dry, golden hair. It was a case of forbidden love, for while they could meet among the reeds or deep within the forest, it simply wouldn't do to rendezvous without the cover of tree trunks and thick foliage. "No no, it wouldn't do", said he, caressing her strawy hair, while she searched his army eyes for a commitment that simply wasn't there.

Henri Rousseau, "Rendezvous in the Forest"

A frightfully original, trendy individual.

"I," Monsieur X began to lisp, "am my own inthpirathion!" His pinky ring and fez indeed gave the appearance of a frightfully original trendy individual. Yet for the inquisitive and independent eye, such as mine, it was plain to see that his distinctive little moustache was quite blatantly plagiarized from his constant companion, a cat. This cat, I began to suspect, was the real source of Monsieur X's notorious sense of fashion...







Henri Rousseau, "Portrait of Monsieur X"