One Poem - Bobby Parker

Dada House

Today Dada House was alive with the sound
of postcards from lovers torn down the middle
(of the left-hand message side) Phrrrip
with the first half read aloud at breakfast:
‘Dear Tristan, it is raining Welsh dragons
and my new dress is a promenade
full of washed up comedians…’
and the other half read aloud
before going to bed: ‘I like screaming
at the kids can you please feed the house
I wish love soon…’
My postcard was blank because
she is afraid of words - the image
on the cover was abstract and blurred,
as if a cracked camera was spun
into the air as it clicked over the scene:
a blue sky blur, my lover waving from a cloud blur,
the dirty big sea blur, his fucking Harley
parked on top of the sun blur.
I squeezed it in my hot hands and simmered
from one end of the day to the other
until the household chuckled itself to sleep.
Of course, Marcel enjoyed the experiment
so much he couldn’t sleep and bounced
a rubber skull against the wall all night.
I hate Marcel! The moon is an out of tune
violin and my heart is a useless confusion
like my lover’s postcard as I wait for her
to leave her ex-husband the artist and come
back to Dada House where it’s safe.
--

Bobby Parker lives in the West Midlands, UK. His first book of poems, Pictures of Screaming People, is available from Erbacce Press. He also edits the magazine Urban District Writer and is busy writing a crazy book about dreams and ordinary people with weird habits.