THE TALE OF DER VYER.

Marais Van der Vyer shot one of her farm labourers, dead. It didn't particularly matter due to the lack of work he did at the farm anyway. Why flog a dead horse when you can shoot it in the head? That was Miss Van der Vyers motto, and as far as she was concerned, a bloody good motto it was too. The farm worker had been a lazy oik with a surly attitude who had finally got what was coming to him. Not only was he surly and lazy, he had also been having his end away with the ravishingly good looking Larissa Van Pom Strumpet. With her flaming red hair and cool, knowing, flirtatious eyes she had caused scandal at the farm with her low cut tops and minuscule shorts. As the men concurred, they liked short shorts, and they all liked Larissa, frequently.



Marais was a jealous soul, of short stature with skin as dark as her nature. Being of good stock, it was bizarre she turned out so bad. Her family were of aristocracy, as rich as they were greedy and Marais wanted for nothing, except true love. It was difficult for her to be looked up at only in the sense of her wealth and class, as opposed to her beauty and charm (and height). This was why she killed. To be fair, she did give the farm workers a chance, a chance to work hard, and a chance to win her heart. If they did the first but showed no interest in her, she would let them live (albeit make sure they got the ghastly jobs) but if they did the latter too, well gosh, that indeed, was curtains. Larissa was lucky she worked as hard as she played and as much as Marais prayed Larissa would slacken, she never gave Marais the satisfaction of putting a bullet in her head.

The other farm hands were becoming increasingly suspicious of the disappearances of their work mates and found the reasons behind the disappearances a tad odd and unbelievable. John had won the lottery and ran away to Spain with a young and nubile model called Syndi. Dave had fallen into a ditch then awoken to believe he should go help starving kids in Africa. Carlos had tripped over his shoe lace and broken his head and could apparently be found shuffling about three towns down shouting about Jesus. Yet who were they to think too hard? They had work to do and money to earn so they toiled then embroiled in dalliances of the sexy kind.

Marais was aware that the more men who said no to her was helping her get closer to her eventual yes. This caused her to become more pernickity about the men's standards of work. If a flower had been trodden on the gun would be out of her suspenders quicker than Linford Christie racing from the Klu Klux Klan. New men would arrive, then leave in a bin bag. No one was right for Marais. This caused her much sadness. Was she really, truly so bad? Was being with her truly a fate worse than death? Her realisation that she actually wasn't came in the epitimonious form of a small chap going by the name of Storly. No one had ever heard of the name before, and probably never would again, due to the fact his parents were eccentric and made the name up. Storly was a bourgeois man with a heart, who knew his money was not his own, knew that he was privileged and knew that if he worked, he too could hand over money to others and make them slightly privileged too. Marais Van der Vyer liked Storly's morals, his hard, tanned body that knew a hard days work, and his care free easy manner. Marais threw her gun away and stopped buying bin bags.Over the milked cows, they knew it was love.

HOOKED.

Mrs Smith’s man was no fisherman by hobby,
more a horse of nature
in the blood that lead to his cock,
soft and grey on the slab.

His mouth.
That rubber lipped mouth.
He never brushed those Big Ed teeth.
At least she got paid for that honour.

This stallion sat in his boat
and was hooked by mutual bait.
It came in the form of a pariah piranha,
Hall and Oates knew what they were singing about.

He died on the flesh
of the already dead.

Her mouth.
That blood red mouth.
She sucked the life out of him
and spat the bones into the sea.

Shergar, the enigma of his kind,
the kind who disappears without trace,
leaving an empty taste
like that of a question mark on the tongue.

Those mouths.
Those dirty, lustful mouths.
Mr Smiths track runs to the whores
whose entry signs lead out to Hades Sea.
This horse’s hobby was whores.
He'll fuck forever, never more.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.

Skin-tight with longing, like dangerous girls
still tight to touch but no innocent peach.
The tomatoes reel, drunk
like cinnamon kisses that taste inside the mouth,
divine from the vine.

I am burdened as the sky,
it’s a ceiling that never gets repainted,
clouds upset, buckets pour
sweat onto a face embracing love, wide open.
They varnish onto earth.

This is one way to say it,
to speak without words, one wave.
The girl gone, you left.
I loved you, all over.

And this is another.
I tasted love in places no one else has.
Last year in August I hung
myself on the rope you gave me,
my head between my knees, looked up
and saw you tugging, tighter,
flirting with the atmosphere.
Take the lead, its two to tango,
but you were here,
the sun circled the earth
and the sky had no gravity.

September will fall
on top of us
with twilights metal,
I stroke nipples with nickels,
loose change,
(penny for your thoughts?)
from a pocket. Quicker than
flash Harry you were naked.
An oar can fight water
but I can not fight temptation.
I will look up from my feet
and see the same rope and smile.
We can catch the leaves red handed,
flush faced with hot breath in shells of ears
embracing smoke.
With you I hear the sea.
Long may we drown in it.