A dead whale, mouth curved up the lower half,
merging indeterminately with its top.
This whale turns in the wind although it is
not moved by the wind. And there is no hook;
no pulley above it sustaining things,
it being a metaphorical dead whale.
This being. An entity. Which is wearing
a plastic hat over a cheap circlet,
a crown. It does not fit his head. He is
scratching himself. He is an old white stone
slagged into a field of flowers; large nose, dark teeth
and neat buttocks. He is entirely still
and silent. There are marks of water's flow
on the skin. And that's punctured. Thick mushrooms
may grow beneath him. In the street centre,
he hovers, uncertain whether or not
to buy a drink. Much soil has collected
behind his teeth. Life is returning to
the land he is buried in. Bones crumble.
Fats boil away and help to burn the flesh.
It's such a pity to use that gorgeous box
on a bastard. There's a limited casket choice
for so big a corpse. He lasted so long
because of his size. That might have killed him;
but, in the event, bulk preserved him
from disease. For a while. In the event.
Thank God, he didn't suffer too much.
He looks worse than yesterday. He was sitting
reading the Financial Times, picking his teeth
with that bit of old wire on his key ring,
the wine-glass half-full, against a side plate,
a fly struggling to climb from the liquid.
He sat down heavily in the taxi seat.
I'll give you one chance to hook them before
they try for me. Fail, and I shall eat you,
alive. He nodded, hearing doors open.
Someone grabbed his arm and helped him stand out.
He screamed. His knee almost corrugated.
Not many feet away, a garage door
opened, and then a car passed close by him;
it drove a few more feet until it stopped.
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