Flutter, Tim Timmerman
(monotype, gouache, & collage, 23 ½” x 10″)
Zoloft
Above the desperate crowd: rising
smoke and rainclouds – it makes me think
of my dad when he’s had too much
bitter on a Sunday – but I can’t put out
these fires because it’s Wednesday and I just
saw a girl who reminded me of someone,
staring in front of the college, my fingers
on my cheeks, her name a singing
ricochet in a virgin bedroom February 1996.
For some reason the students’ hairstyles
and their cigarette laughter makes me throw
a punch into the empty space between
Roland Hill’s statue and a mentally ill woman
mutating inside a broken phone box.
It’s hot, too hot, the sun
bangs the back of my head like a gong.
Reality shivers with embarrassment
and, anxious of my pathetic desire
to get in touch with ex-girlfriends, I question
my motives for bringing you here
on the riverbank by Tesco, conducting
a chorus of ringtones in the car park
with a cold sausage roll from Greggs.
____________
Bobby Parker