A Path Well Trodden

by Mark Dugdale
(London, UK)

Her heel is bigger than mine & its poignantly pointing pain invokes unorthodox thoughts about shoes,
especially Manolo Blahnik footsteps in puddles of pavement dew,

but comparisons can’t be drawn until dawn light strolls into night’s town,
obliterating opaque boundaries,
as equators separate hemispheres,

that we built to keep & fleece & skin & put in tins what won’t fit,

that cost the earth its electric power lines,
standing statically in countrysides of England or Norway,
as it's got trolls to contend with too,

that don’t coch as bloods on bongs after singalongs,
avoiding crowded throngs & chat up elaborate cons do,
but worse,
hanging King Kong on backseat buses tossing & turning on Loudspeaker,
competing for attention,
a train of thought in a stationary mood,

that beholds the joy of division, with its implicit incisions,
circulating through men of square jaws & shoulders who can hold on,
to their grips on reality & the finality of nos from girls who tan their own hides & have leather souls,
without letting go & knotting their fingernails in bows,

that employ hard workers & are in turn employed by ball breakers,
cancelling each other out until the room starts to spin & their stomachs explode over their desks,

that stand still, two buildings eyeing each other up
from top to bottom & bottom to top,
omitting floor 13, as its spooky trappings represent a bygone era of smoking wills on a period paper & smokey smoke stains through to steel like chill does to bone,
& phone in the story as the Internet hasn’t been invented yet,

that coast through Catford on a whim & a prayer with platted hair,
comparing Christmas card messages that thank God for cornflakes,
as His Taste Buds channel Themselves through tongues,

that imbue souls of youthful innocence with experience & learning but can’t promise those yearnings will be satisfied anytime soon,

that harpoon whales for the notes of their songs,
excluding fat whales of Middlesbrough, Wakefield & Wales,
as they require train fare & their fair hair & fairer voices are starved of oxygen by the infinite chocolates they regularly consume,

that stand back, peripheral, euphorically vibrating as an atom pops a cherry, cataclysmically,
with no regard for its own safety or for the safety of others whose energy it transfers on deadline day,
no permanents whatsoever,

that copy & paste & call it sharing,

that dissuade one another from taking things further,
even distance stays the same,
& social media blocks & stops everything from flushing away.

Laying foundations is how you build bridges, like questions that can only be answered by questions,
reserving judgement, sitting on the fence despite the obvious discomfort that wastes away face,
eroding pearly white cliffs of Dover coated in a sea spray of spit,

that forgo their right to brush shoulder to shoulder with each other,
& instead,
settle for the underside of the pillow, hot & bloodied & waiting for that fairy of a motherf--ker all clad in cum-clean white, & sticky from ejaculating joy,

that ends here because silence has no bearing in a sea of sound & ignorance is no longer endearing.