The Citrus Variations

by Neil Fulwood

     Here comes a candle
     to light you to bed
     and here comes a chopper
     to chop off your head
            – ‘ORANGES AND LEMONS’ (trad.)

Here comes a whetstone
to kiss the blade’s edge
and here comes a finger
held against it to check

Here comes a swear word
at the clean deep cut
and here comes a dressing
as the blood wells up

Here’s the sharp sulphur smell
of a match struck on stone,
here’s the candle’s nub
and the flame’s blue cone

Here’s the hot drip of wax
on a bare patch of skin,
here’s the light guttering out
at a sudden cough of wind

Here’s the house in darkness
and its clutter of things
that account for stubbed toes
and the scraping of shins

Here’s where the dropped matchbox
is left unretrieved,
here’s the shadowy staircase
and its symphony of creaks

Here’s a long slow ascent
as your hand grips the rail,
here’s a door like a tombstone
and your nerve starts to fail

and a shape in the moonlight
slides from under your bed
and here comes a chopper
and there goes your head

Carmelita (after Warren Zevon)

by Neil Fulwood

Not heroin but whisky, and Echo Park
is removed from Bestwood Park
by more than a Greyhound ticket
or ten cold hours in a boxcar

but sometimes a place is arrived at
where everything is worn down
to the coarse grain
of what was always going to happen

and the only difference
is whether the song was playing on a radio
scratchy with static in a hotel room
or a museum-piece jukebox in a bar

that serves one brand of beer,
where the few notes
you pawned your iPad for
will cover this drink and maybe the next.