Submissions

Monday, 1 March 2010

Issue one// Kayleigh Dray

House of Cards

To live in card houses
y’all gotta get used to the strong taste
of pepper
and powder

and

…and that strange smell ya get
when ya squeeze a big amber drop
o’pine dew ‘tween your fingers
‘til it bleeds a sunset over the prints.
All sticky and lookin’
like a sigh…

It / reeks of / Why.

Oh, the sound? That’s the bees,
livin’ and workin’
sometimes dyin’ for the honey
pot on the breakfast bar
- all made of clubs and spades.
They ain’t got nowhere else to go,

So…

when they comes knockin’ for sugar,
don’t give ‘em the
brush off with
old sweet’n’lows.

Y’all can sit and stare at these -
these paper walls,
all bendin’ with the elements,
some yellered with years
of fondlin’ in backhand poker
games and such.

Ya stare and see hearts.
See clubs.
See the dull dots of marks ‘gainst
the shine of the diamonds
as they glint-shine off the rich folks‘
rings and earrings and
and tie-pins!

\ \ But / /
all the faces and the aces

are turned out and away

and they sure as hell don’t…

they sure as hell don’t look

at You

as You’re tryin’ make out

ya don’t see them.
[Make out yew don’t give a damn.
It’d be a pretty lie, if ya could
make it stick]

To let live in card houses
y’all gotta stop sittin’ by
while that strong taste of
pepper
and powder
and rags soaked in
gasoline,
lit by shakin’ gloved hands
from a world without bees,

comes in at ya.

All that… all that not-knowin’ folks

and not-knowin’ when to keep

that big bazoo shut and trapped

and Kept Quiet.

“Hell boy, you’s just a Spade,

so you ain’t got no right to go

makin’ eyes at your new

sweet-Heart.”

They’ll soon learn.

Leads to bell-fights.

Or silence.

Or unwanted

flickerin’ lights.

And when you is livin’ in a house of cards,

You don’t need no extra buzzin’.

Those card walls are steady held,

no swayin’,

no need to be prayin’ for God

to suck back in that wicked breeze.

But The Smoke seeps through

and it calms.

It calms them,

It – the smoke- it calms the bees and

the bees are calmed by the smoke and…

And they’re all crawlin’, not flyin’,

Big mass of black and yeller.

They’re all crawlin’ as they – as they start dyin’,

Big Mess of black and yeller bodies,

heaped in smoke and ash and flames.

It reeks of \\Why ///

The white painted faces are starin’ outwards

And lookin’ away

Lookin’ away from all that death…

the death of

All those poor, poor blackened

bodies and…
It
Reeks
Of



© Kayleigh Dray 2010