Poem: 'Voices/ The Man With The Flexible Conscience'

 

VOICES/ THE MAN 

WITH THE 

FLEXIBLE CONSCIENCE 

the house is old, 

silence falls from the ceiling 

to fill cracked cups, as 

sunseeds seep in neat parcels 

through frost-glass windows 

to collide in soft detonation 

across the sink, 

I am alone… 

from 

somewhere beneath me 

disembodied tentacle voices 

squirm through the walls, 

snakes of syllables and 

crawls of consonants 

meander up the stairwell, 

to echo the light escaping 

beneath a ground-floor door, 

words blend smoothly into 

unevenly painted woodwork and 

slide gently along emulsion walls 

to fall and congeal into pools 

in odd corners of the hallway, 

occasional laughter hastens 

up the stairs, step by step, 

as talk dances and whores 

to disguise its banality, it swings 

euphoric from the light-bulb 

when it discovers a clever phrase, 

taps on the grease-encrusted stove 

to discover its depth, and 

echoes itself from the mirror, 

the house is old, 

I am alone…

Originally published in:

'DURANGO-CORTEZ HERALD'

(USA, July 1975)