Iron shoes


The guns in the gun-rack
Signify a beautiful day ruined again.
Smooth shiny barrels in gun metal grey
Wooden or plastic stocks
Packs of BB pellets.

But do tell – why are they here in my wardrobe?
Along with the net dress I bought in Stoke
PVC bodice, boned and zipped plastic leather skirt.
Unwise choices slotted together
In their bungalow of belligerence.

My stance with my two strong feet planted
Is firmly against.

Against these guns
And the violent potential lying submerged,
Latent, haunting, threatening
Unspoken violence.

Against him
The unwanted advances he takes advantage of
When I’m asleep
The cigarettes and beers
The maudlin obsessions:-
Serial killers,
Survivalists,
Vietnam,
Army outfits - Multifarious camouflage patterns.

All these things I am against

His shiftlessness
His lack of ambition.
Irresponsible
Sackless
Selfish malingerer.

His arsenal of guns
Bought in my name
With my driver’s license
The imprisonment of my wages
Malevolence.

And again I’m against all this
And my strong legs are braced for attack

And yet it never came,
Too sublet for the obvious
Too mysterious
Too ingenious

How easily I gave in and was manipulated
How often I gave up, all his way, spoiled child.
His intellect squandered in voyeurism on his own life

Spectator to his own history
Days spent sunk in an armchair
Dulled with anesthetic alcohol
Watching of others lives
A second hand life of his own.

I unplant my feet and walk

Crossing
Land sea and rivers.
Travelling  away five thousand miles
Keep moving 
until I have worn out five pairs or iron shoes,

until I am East of the sun and West of the moon and he will never find me here.

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