Written By
Poet and Photographer J H Martin @ A Coat for a Monkey
FORWARD – REWIND
My pinned eyes close
On their bloods and their greys
I know where I’m going
But not what I’ll see
Not through the oak door and not up the stairs
But through the shadow filled window
Of my single room
Expanding – constricting
My fake mountain freedom into three star hotels
Where – drunk on cheap whisky
I watch her go down
Down past the dreams of my short days retreating
Down past the names and down past the heath
And back to those knives which still stab and pierce
That landlord and ‘lady’
The fights and the screams
The needles and Ketamin
The vodka and gin
Twenty-four seven – that bang bang banging
On the beds walls and doors
Before the pool cue then snaps
Before the motorbike crash
Before the shower then breaks
Before the ‘champion punches’
I take and I walk
From that hell of a ‘house’
From that job I can’t keep
And from any bit of sense in this misfiring head
Jumped on by tuk-tuks
Beaten by bars
Crushed like the pills
And drowning in lashings of random violence
I mean –
How many fights? How many holds?
How many blackouts? And how many chokes?
Sixty? Ninety? I really don’t know
I just blank them out with these blue milligrams
The flashes
The darkness
The blood and the sperm
This foreigner lost in his own foreign land
Used and abused by distracting thoughts
Which only exist to persist in their sick repetition
Until their anger screams no and their pain sedates time
After all – who the hell cares
What this place is called?
I am nothing but a bullet hole in its concrete blocks
A mere speck of dust rising up from the streets
A hot fevered sweat
Which drips and then drops
Down this dry tranquilised throat
And on down through the screen
Until these thoughts are drowned deep
By more silver strips
Again – I already told you now – didn’t I?
I really don’t care if it’s your break or mine
You already know that I’m going to let you win
You already know that I’m not even going to try
To make one single shot to beg or fight back
Against that scaffold pole to my knees
Against that monkey wrench to my spine
Against that gun pressed to my head
For I have no form and no feelings at all
I am nothing but an empty window
Looking out and back through this hollow figure
From inside and outside this rewinding frame
No woman
No hotel
No mountain
No room
Only eyes behind eyes
Within walls without walls
Text © J H Martin
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J H’s Previous Contributions To Edge Of Humanity Magazine
A Breeze Of Sorrow Passing Over Emptiness
“…you know you can’t sleep there” | Passages Of A Homeless Person’s Life
Life On The Irrawaddy’s Muddy Waters
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Edge of Humanity Magazine is an independent nondiscriminatory platform that has no religious, political, financial, or social affiliations.
We are committed to publishing the human condition, the raw diverse global entanglement, with total impartiality.
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