Woman on Wheels by Mike Jenkins

Don’t look down on me!
I’m a remarkable invention:
half-vehicle and half-human!

Don’t joke about such things?
Well, what is there left?
God’s deserted me,
or I’ve ignored him…
whatever, it’s neither blame nor salvation.

Don’t look away or speak slowly,
I only grin stupidly
when I’ve taken too much gin.

Later, in the morning,
messages from my brain
jam in my throat.
My spine’s a street
I can only walk in sleep
or in those photos once placed
in a case too high to reach.

Running on smoke not steam,
I become the mechanic
as I take my leg from the cupboard
to put on as you would make-up.
I prefer to numb myself
in poison-clouds of my making,
rather than face a sun
shining like instruments of operation.

You think I’m not like you?
It’s true the world is full
of stairs and people climbing,
while I remain below
locked into pavement, gazing
as the building saunters away.
Yet I know some who are paralysed within,
so all they’ve achieved
becomes a throbbing, an ache
from a lost limb.

By Mike Jenkins
from A Dissident Voice

Among Shoals of Stars by Mike Jenkins

Each night the sea

tires of its slopping and slapping

and ascends the limestone staircase

of cactus-sharp stone.

 

It lies down

where sky has been,

waving away the blue

and only hooded clouds

show its occasional restlessness.

 

Bright fish with mouths

that globe, look down on me

and the breezy whish-whish

of sea-weed is the needled

branches of every pine.

 

I see the lights

of planes as they are out

trawling for dreams.

The moon spills milk

which I drink in,

before I too lie down

to sleep among shoals of stars.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from Invisible Times