Sunday 22 August 2010

#15 Long Service Award

Face wizened, seamed, like rivulets cutting their way through a cragged mountain pass, your dark button eyes regard a world of shopping centres, sales and Starbucks.

Khaki has given way to Surawal, parade ground to waste ground, Kukri has been long sheathed.

You are present but almost forgotten, your reward for a life-time’s devotion, a broken bench by the Thames in the sunshine.

Sunday 15 August 2010

#14 Empire of the six gardens

I rule the empire of the six gardens, three roofs and two sheds and all therein unto the boundary of the great wall. Five wives are my harem, twelve fat neuters my courtier-slaves and here my dominion is absolute, unquestioned and unchallenged.

The providers, in their great wisdom, left me intactus to rule this domain and here I fear no-one, not great ginger Achilles, nor killer ear-torn Buttonchops – I fought and conquered them both and even the great hell hound Megan was sent whimpering from the garden where the pleasure plant grows.

Now, I bask in the glow of the warming orb, allowing a provider to ear-worship me, one-eyed, battle-scarred, my head a bumpy patchwork of ancient rents and overgrown wounds. Battles have been fought, will be won again, until claws and teeth and cunning fail…

Topsy is my name.