Jack In The Box Poem by Jack Oates

If I could see this through.
If I could flee the corks as they fly,
suddenly suicidal, from bottle necks.
Fizzing deep into the dark abyss, -
like two lovers leaping from the precipice;
from the cosy comfort of Sunday prayer;
from the simplicity of babes mounting kerbs
in the shadow of eternal firs;
from steaming pots of kale and quarrels
making opaque the window panes,
while outside the weather vanes
and the spiders spin
in the bone chill wind
that rakes across the plateau.

If I could relax on the foot worn mat,
stretching like a cartoon cat
tiger striped by a Venetian sun,
tail flicking to the metronome
of a click of a clock in a coma,
as if time were loath to tick along.
Slothed to a curl, almost immutable;
like continental drift
with the leisure of a growing claw
clipped and scraped upon a board, or
ripped and raked along yielding flesh -
the tinkle of a bell around my neck
portentous as a bobbing buoy,
distinct as footsteps on the stairs.

(See how they run,
when the rabid ratter rings
and the cups clatter like cold teeth
on a railway bench.)

If I could stack the boots
in neat pairs along the hooks,
stiff as stale bread,
stiff as new books;
stiff as mile long stares beneath shellac peaks
hiding bristle hairs from the wilting bleach.
Daily, then, bent obedient
we rub spittle-wax
over our tanned toecaps,
until all is hidden under the carapace -
beetle brogues pinned to the guardhouse wall
legs hanging like hat straps,
waiting to be crossed, to be bowed.

One of us shall grow old.
The other shall fall cracking,
sniper shot in the cold -
pocket tin pierced
with a cave and a crown,
stale flakes rubbing on muddied twill.
Red running red on a linen shroud;
an eye in a flame on a candle on a cake
rough blown to acrid smoke,
leaking into the wind cut cordite air.
The gaily flustered face
that greeted you by the drainer
will fade into the ether,
will glide into October mists;
grey, grey as a Tupperware sky.

On pillows packed with bromide,
I learn of loneliness by the lamplight;
leaning into the silence
like a moor swept rowan
I whisper, 'Goodnight, my love, goodnight…'
to the figure in the frame -
long gone now, long gone;
not content nor meant to remain
in songs that leak through the mail.
Not content or meant to prevail
in the bugle that pierces the stille nacht;
the farewell that falls on me
like a guillotine in the woodbine dusk,
cutting the hours into quatrains -
each note sustains like a tuning fork
while my foot tap-tap-taps a meter
on the pine pales.

If I…if I…if -
if nought but nowt.
I, sheepishly, throughout -
cowering behind cotton and quavers,
letting tinkers dent the tin
while my hammer lay still on the anvil.
Smithy's hands smooth; bellows thin -
embargoed away from the din
of bazaars and bodegas;
of sodden rocks in dimly lit cattle sheds
and fruity hues in the blue borne night,
that fade in to sullen footfall.
Past taxicabs;
past the clamour of the dogs;
past feral shadows;
past curses in the fog;
to Neptune's arid prison
where film flecked eyes peered through rushes
at downy calves and scattered freckles,
where novice nails snapped on snake slid buckles
in the urgent quiver of my youth.

Thus, I must steal away -
to familial heat and one cold half,
to the begging bowl that sits empty on the hearth,
collecting puckered pith and petioles;
bagging stone, earth, ash, dust
petrified in a pot that pours no tea
but waits like a porcelain sentry
by the pantry door
for coddled leaves and cardamom seeds
to curl like Bisto from its brew stained belly.
Each night,
despite this tenuous scene
saffron bulbs cast a sheen,
the night a copper tun,
molar mashed
and gnashed through lips moist
with pale ale,
while my breath grows slowly tidal,
weakly washing on the rigid air.