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looking glass badger; criminal ladle

by Dangle Manatee

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1.
I am waiting for a man with hair like an Italian goalkeeper to kick his golden boot through the prime minister’s teeth. I will capture the moment on camera and sell the image for less than it is worth.
2.
I made a mistake when I stole the ice cream. Collected plastic knives instead of spoons and now you’ve sliced your tongue-tip into our tub of raspberry ripple. The stub seeps blood inconspicuously, jutting up like a nipple full up of beetroot milk. You do not look thrilled. A gull advances and says ‘I’ll have that if you don’t want it’ through those imperturbable eyes, whilst the blood smudged on your chin, it makes me think of pink granite, and of the time we tap-danced on it without knowing any moves at all, and of the nooks of your body sweating into mine. Discarding our knives, now, now, now, we kiss, we must. Your lump of mute muscle slops beneath melting cream as I taste your blood in my throat and I dream of never growing old.
3.
WLTM #1 00:25
monotone sofa-bed would like to meet selfish crustacean for enormous giggles bendy ball would like to meet crunchy parrot for roman pancakes proud tamarind would like to meet afraid meat-hook for turgid gas hopeful raver would like to meet golf-ball-sized barn owl for unbelievable shits
4.
Weave a rug from belly-fluff and be done with it. A caretaker mops up hot sick craving Jesus on the cross. You say you don’t believe in anything, I say, ‘Do you think that crabs exist?’, you say, ‘Well, I guess they are a thing that is’, so I say, ‘You believe in something then’. And if you hold your tongue for too long it will dry out in the sun, like a raison but less fun to eat on a creaking playground swing. These cracks in lips they look so comforting, warm red ravines where we can hear the echoes sing as we count what we’ve stolen. In amongst the monuments to a night well spent, a spider wraps its legs tentatively round a cork. We speak in rhythms, write in tributaries, listening to owls that shriek like crying babies. The pavement shimmers in reflection of the stars but I couldn’t tell you where we are in relation to such things. And under bridges people sleep with only ticket stubs and cigarettes butts to separate them from the road, as we just count what we’ve stolen. So count what you’ve stolen now.
5.
I have been left responsible for a small dog, the size of the top of a chimney pot. It shits blood on a canvas for a living and it is a genius.
6.
As a bee lands on a lily and a toothpick slits some gums, the height of hillocks increase like unhurried lungs and climbers clip to cliffs umbilically. Foxes on leads snarling uninvitingly, but still unbitingly, and we’ve got a special powder to remove the toughest stains from all of our chains, oh, they really sparkle. Broth burps bubbles above a flame. As nurses relieve fevers with cold towels and tourists hide money in their shoes, the face of a kitten is printed on a pack of tissues, and tractors corrode from their own chemicals. Prosthetic smiles shining inhumanely, we nod its-a-shamely, then continue to comment on the intricacy of the clock’s hands, oh, the trembling romance. The wheels on the bus go round and around. As shelves of biscuits are re-stacked and bags of bones patter in the rain, eggs hatch like heads crashing through window panes and siblings argue over maths. We’ve had enough of that.
7.
I have become involved in a riot. It was caused by a shortage of audio guides at the potato museum and it will all end in tears.
8.
Imprints of delight are shivered in my spine. They converse in time with other friends of mine, like fear and grief and missing kissing your teeth. Every fossil’s curl points to a different world but I can’t help but think. I don’t know why the fuck I’m here I could be fucking anywhere. Machines that are built to kill used as tables until I can hold my breath longer than you. An exercise in memory mixes doubt with vanity, steam peels paint and opens follicles but I can’t help but think I don’t know why the fuck I’m here I could be fucking anywhere.
9.
Clean up on aisle four! Praying mantis shaped pasta.
10.
On holiday I met a pauper with a box of raisons balanced on their knee. The sun was cooking our brains inside our skulls. The cobbled streets were warmer to the touch than breasts. From some half sleeping shopkeeper I purchased a bag of frozen peas and a small saucepan. Then, in front of the beggar, I poured the peas into the pan and added my loose change. In between us I placed the pan on a cobble stone. All at once we both lunged forwards to rub the peas into our searing skin. The shades shifted, meeting sweat, from green to green to green to green. We swallowed each coin just like our guilt.
11.
WLTM #2 00:28
potatoey postman would like to meet dogged cygnet for pulchritudinous panpipes confused peanut would like to meet shitting tube for uninspired tellings-off spongy colonel would like to meet portable specialist for fragrant tongue-tingling talented farmhand would like to meet saucy pen for manageable jigs
12.
music box 01:29
music boxes full of watches rusted tweezers and razor blades turn the handle hear the jangle there’s never been a tune the same hrm bap nrrm tap grum dum lrrrm brrm hmm hrrm grap shm nap snmmm nmmmm turn them faster start the clatter of baseball bats on baking trays broken dolls feet kicking dust sheets you can’t escape this song’s parade hrm bap nrrm tap grum dum lrrrm brrm hmm hrrm grap shm nap snmmm nmmmm Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! hrm bap nrrm tap grum dum lrrrm brrm hmm hrrm grap shm nap snmmm nmmmm
13.
What will you be wearing to the end of year dance? An oat on each eyelid and a hot dog bun.
14.
Rooftops speak to the sky throughout the night, sheltering fingers peeling clementines, as the faces of the moon iced onto a cake help us to illustrate how knowledge is consumed. Workers in launderettes wash socks to pay the rent making sure to check pockets for spare change, as drains clog up with leaves and plastic sleeves for straws, leaving us to ask: what are we here for? a spear on a wall a soldier rubbing their chin a waning waterfall these walls are too thin Approach with ill intent a bag of unmixed cement placed at one end of a see-saw. A career in the stars; a lifetime in the mud; the wink of a dove scratching patterns into skin. If fingers rough from weaving rugs stroke their children’s cheeks enough they leave their offspring with the love of a coarse sponge. All hairs are laid end to end from throughout history, we walk this line screaming: where will it get me? a column crumbles down a note left on a plate a dog dressed in a gown it’s all over in a handshake
15.
Stomach lining bleeds from an ill deer’s anus. We drink tea.
16.
I had plans to start a band of revolutionaries and we were gonna kill the queen but then someone said ‘Let’s chop of his head instead’ and I found myself beneath the guillotine. So in the next life, I decided to try and write, it was poetry that was pulsing through my veins and I revealed in excess and, yes, I left a beautiful corpse, but I never got around to write a page. Next time around I considered being a an architect to build spires which might pierce the sky, but soon I found out it wasn’t so easy as it looked, as the bricks all fell in on me one night. All my past lives have been failed attempts at fame but at least I can say that I lived them to the full. Now I just want to be able to say the same about this one but I’m not certain what I want to do. So next I thought about being a prophet to give the lost some direction in their lives but when I looked out on the crowd that had come to hear me I thought ‘Well, I’m just as lost as any of these guys’. Next I conceded I could be a scholar, run this state through with my pen, but upon filling my bookshelves, they all collapsed on me, and the headlines read that learning leads to death. But then I knew, oh I knew, that I was born to be an artist the paintbrush like an extension of my arm, and I cut off my ears to try and fit in but the other artists they just laughed. All my past lives have been failed attempts at fame but at least I can say that I lived them to the full. Now I just want to be able to say the same about this one but I’m not certain what I want to do.
17.
Fish can’t swim through custard. You have no reflection.
18.
A child takes a sticker to say ‘I was good at the doctor’s today’ as in the factory where the stickers were made ink drips onto the floor in the shape of a lion the machines roar in mockery but it stays silent as the workers whisper it will come to life someday. La da da da da la da da da da la da da da da hey oh Sweating waiters season salads as a customer remarks ‘I don’t know how they manage.’ Their companion replies that they cannot sympathise and ‘If you want the most from life, you’ve got to just grab it.’ A newspaper laying on their table bears grubby fingers smudged over headlines about genocide and adverts for new cars. La da da da da la da da da da la da da da da hey oh A supermarket worker adds a cigarette pack to the bread and fruit she’s packed in a black bin bag. Now a fella shaking coins outside asks her for smoke, she says, ‘I can’t give you no food in case you choke’. A police officer approaches to ask if there’s any problem, she shakes her head and says, ‘No, I just wish there was some way I could help him’. La da da da da la da da da da la da da da da hey oh Streams join rivers as lovers join hands at the back of the bus their breath frosting the glass. When a woman with a black eye gets on at the next stop, the passengers surrounding stroke their feet in the dust. Frightened foxes run from the sound of the engine, as an old man slips his gloves on saying, ‘When it’s not summer weather, there’s no use pretending’. La da da da da la da da da da la da da da da hey oh
19.
Sunflower seed shells and bottle caps. Ahhhhhhhh! Bottom draw bowties and shower caps. Ooooooohhhhhhh!
20.
my little dinghy my little dinghy my little dinghy oh my little, oh my little, oh my little , oh oh! oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah yeah yeah my little dinghy my little dinghy my little dinghy my little dinghy oh my little, oh my little, oh my little , oh oh! oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah my little dinghy oh yeah yeah yeah my little dinghy
21.
Coconuts for sex, coconuts for sex, oh, whatever next, now they’ve got coconuts for sex?
22.
I was sat on a park bench eating pinecones they were hard, they were hard to swallow. What I have learnt it was all worth the strain, but all that I’ve learnt I could never explain. I was sat on a bird’s back just listening to them sing. I wasn’t invited, but nor was I intruding What I have learnt I know it was all worth the strain, but all that I’ve learnt I still couldn’t explain. I was at in a pistol, just waiting for it to fire. I can still hear it, I’m sure, whenever I close my eyes. What I have learnt it was all worth the strain, but all that I’ve learnt I cannot explain. I was sat amongst windmills, whispering to the breeze. I asked for her secrets, but all she did was tease. She said that ‘What I’ve learnt it was all worth the strain, but all that I’ve learnt I can’t explain’. I was sat on a riverbed as all the people sieved for gold and I was relived when they picked me up, that I fell back through the holes. What I’ve learnt it was all worth the strain, but what I’ve learnt I cannot explain. I was sat on an earthworm, we were coursing through the soil. We digested old friends the same as we digested old foes. What we learnt, we said, it was all worth the strain, but, you know, all that we learn we can never explain.

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released July 30, 2015

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Dangle Manatee Glasgow, UK

Nobody is superior to anybody else.

Everything is absurd.

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