The Mannequins Are More Real Than You Read online

the mannequins are more real than you

  James Knight

  Texts copyright James Knight 2016

  Cover image copyright James Knight 2016

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.”

  James Knight

  Maker of texts and pictures. Founder of @chimeragroup0, member of Jeff Noon’s @echovirus12.

  Twitter: @badbadpoet

  Website: thebirdking.com

  The Bird King made me do it.

  The mannequins

  I’m trying to read

  but the mannequins

  keep tapping

  at the window

  When I look up they vanish

  Outside

  fibreglass clouds

  are kept in place

  by invisible wires

  —–

  Sometimes the mannequins get behind my eyes

  I feel them tugging the strings

  of my nerves

  playing with my mechanisms

  They make themselves at home in the lumber room of my skull

  —–

  Asleep I’m most vulnerable

  Last night I dreamt that

  after a stock-take

  the mannequins murdered the staff

  dressed them in lingerie

  and displayed them

  in the window

  The night before

  cold hands placed plastic flowers

  on the graves

  of fashion designers

  —–

  My persecution isn’t all bad though

  It has its benefits

  When the mannequins

  possess my hands

  I tap out little poems on my phone

  The index finger

  of my tweeting hand

  pecks the touchscreen

  like a nimble bird

  Words chirp

  in the kingdom

  of their cage

  But the hand

  holding the phone

  is made of fibreglass

  Alice in Hell: 13 slithy variations

  1

  Having made Alice from one of the Mad Hatter’s ribs, Humpty Dumpty told her she could do anything, except speak. “How bothersome!” she said.

  2

  In the church, Alice was horrified to be presented with a talking lamb. “EAT ME!” it bleated and, as the Red Queen cut its throat, “DRINK ME!”

  3

  The chess pieces represented people Alice knew. The white were the saved; the red, the damned. She picked them all up, one at a time, and kissed them.

  4

  Alice was forced to kneel and pray to Our Lady of the Hearts. As she bowed her head, a priest lopped it off. After a cursory funeral, a red rose was placed on her grave.

  5

  On Judgment Day, Alice found herself under the scrutiny of a murderous legal system. When she shouted, “Nonsense!” the sun imploded and the White Rabbit’s watch stopped.

  6

  Virgil appeared to Alice as a white rabbit and guided her through Hell. Satan, in the form of a vanishing cat, weighed up her soul.

  7

  On reaching the eighth row of God’s infernal chessboard, Alice was assumed into Heaven, where she ruled with a rust-red fist and a vacant stare.

  8

  Those present at the tea party were not permitted to leave. They would remain there forever. They smelt Alice’s innocence and hoped she could save them. She smiled at their naivety.

  9

  Banished from Eden, Alice fell down the rabbit hole, past the circles of Hell and into the yawning mouth of the Jabberwocky.

  10

  After the Harrowing of Wonderland, Alice lay her head in her sister’s lap and slept.

  11

  A blue caterpillar sat in the Tree of Knowledge. When Alice talked to him she forgot who she was and what the rules were.

  12

  Although she had been baptised in a sea of her own tears, Alice knew that she was lost forever.

  13

  The White Rabbit’s watch started again. Years passed. Poring over the book of Alice’s life, scholars couldn’t agree on what it might mean.

  When you were nine

  When you were nine your head fell off in the playground. Dr Mort was called. He pasted it back on with PVA glue. You’d never know now.

  —–

  When you were nine your arms turned into trees. Dr Mort worked his magic with the chainsaw. You still need light pruning once a week.

  —–

  When you were nine you broke space-time. Dr Mort patched it back together with a bandage made of your memories, printed in 3D.

  —–

  When you were nine your pet rabbit turned against you, playing dead whenever you went near it. Dr Mort chuckled from his observation post.

  —–

  When you were nine you brought all the extinct animals back to life. Your mother patted you on the head. Dr Mort frowned.

  —–

  When you were nine you pretended to be Dr Mort. Dr Mort, meanwhile, pretended to be you. Your mother was nonplussed.

  —–

  When you were nine Dr Mort replaced your eyes with marbles while you slept. You still haven’t noticed.

  —–

  When you were nine your head started shrinking. You look ridiculous. By the time you’re 70, it will be the size of a pea.

  —–

  When you were nine you tried to become a cyborg. Your shopping trolley attachment was risible.

  —–

  When you were nine you bullied your imaginary friend. He hasn’t forgotten. He’s biding his time.

  —–

  When you were nine you learned that the German word for poison is “gift.” Christmas has had a special meaning for you ever since.

  Patience

  It disguised itself as a coffin.

  The wake was the most tantalising part:

  squatting there,

  maw open,

  a spruced morsel

  on its velvet tongue.

  Eve

  When God blessed creation, a ewe gave birth to Adam. When He cursed Satan, Eve hatched from a crocodile’s egg.

  —–

  In naming the animals, Adam marked them for death. His own name was a slow fire. Eve’s was an inferno.

  —–

  Eve was chameleonic, shifting from colour to colour, according to her mood. The golden joy of her orgasms frightened Adam.

  —–

  In the shelter of the Tree of Knowledge, Eve coupled with the serpent. When Adam discovered them, the sight turned him to stone. God howled.

  —–

  Birds, reptiles and insects answered to Eve. Fish and mammals were her enemies. Bees inscribed her messages of love and war in flowers’ scents.

  —–

  Eve spun a web from moonlight. God’s words, frail, dry, got caught in it and shivered to dust.

  —–

  Eve’s midnight laughter made the dead come to life. Her midday sorrow buried them again. The world’s terrible machinery never rested.

  —–

  Eve made a mirror whose surface flickered with fleshy desires. When God jealously smashed it, she buried its shards in our dreams.

  —–

  God invented religion. Eve countered with science. God made the pig, the cow, the lamb. Eve made the knives and forks with which to eat them.

  The Dream Shop

  From nine at night

  until five in the morning

 
the mannequins staff

  the Dream Shop.

  Customers sleepwalk in and murmur their enquiries.

  Some of the patrons are very demanding.

  They queue outside before opening time,

  pressing sleeping faces

  against the windows.

  Last night an old man died in the Dream Shop;

  the Yves Klein blues blew his mind.

  The mannequins dialled 999 but couldn’t speak.

  The Bird King in love

  1

  The Bird King has fallen in love with a radiator.

  He adores

  her pockmarked skin,

  her neurotic arias,

  her coldness,

  her impulsive warmth.

  2

  Tiring of his dalliance with the radiator, the Bird King woos an armchair.

  She’s amply upholstered

  and groans dreamily

  when he sits on her.

  3

  Now the Bird King is dating a pair of curtains.

  He strokes her yielding folds, gently opens her.

  But already he’s eyeing up the blinds.

  4

  The Bird King’s amorous capriciousness reaches delirious heights.

  In one week he makes love to

  a toaster

  a lightbulb

  two carpets

  a pet shop

  a fruit bowl

  a political rally

  a helicopter

  a heart condition

  a daydream

  half a dozen eggs

  a swimming pool

  an illegal transaction

  a murmur

  a cancelled West End show

  a sock

  five heads of state

  a wart

  a sneeze

  a planet

  and a mirror.

  13 enigmatic scenes from a TV murder mystery everyone has seen but no one has made

  1

  The house, stamped white on slate sky. Behind the windows, all the rooms are filled with water. A drowned man in a dinner suit floats by.

  2

  The revolver lies on the pillow of an unmade bed. The revolver is not just an object. It is the man with the scar, his fear and impotence.

  3

  A hand on a door handle, hesitating, unmoving. The shot is a close-up; we can’t see if the door is open or closed.

  4

  An oblong mirror returns the gaze of an anxious woman. She hates the world. Her eyes are crystals.

  5

  A room on fire. A laughing man sits on a smouldering sofa.

  6

  A succession of corridors. We glide along them like ghosts.

  7

  Outside, there is a dark forest. The story will begin and end there. The beginning will mimic the end. The end has already happened.

  8

  “I’m sorry. Please leave me alone,” whispers a mouth tight with pain. Blue light reveals a knife in a drawer, a torn photograph.

  9

  The walls are bleeding. Blood collects at the feet of a naked woman. She’s standing, eyes open, but she looks dead.

  10

  The curtains are closed. A shaft of light shows us a letter-opener. This is an invitation and a threat.

  11

  The corridors again. They link up, double back, double cross us, never end. Doors are closed or ajar. Music is playing. No one is there.

  12

  A bath fills with hot water. We expect to see blood. Someone has written the word MANNEQUIN on the steamed-up mirror.

  13

  A stone through a window. Flying glass, a cry of surprise or horror or delight. The moon is full. A blade of cloud slices it in two. 

  Zero

  The mannequins favour

  zero gravity

  breathlessness

  the labyrinth of stars.

  Orpheus and Eurydice

  1

  Moonlit clouds hard as bone

  A row of houses

  seen from behind,

  some trees:

  pieces of a stage set

  A parked car murmurs muffled music

  Peek inside through misted glass

  She’s under him, twisting

 

  A circle of yellow light moves over them.

  2

  Afterwards,

  humming a tune,

  he sits up, runs a hand

  over the back of his neck

  That all you got?

  He looks back at her

  and she looks away;

  she’s elsewhere

  already

  Somewhere else,

  in another story:

  a timer reaching zero

  A curtain of cloud covers the moon.

  Perdita in pieces

  Perdita’s confusing profusion of parts

  makes it impossible to know

  which way up

  she goes.

  She flutters beneath

  the camera’s shuttered stare,

  butterfly-pretty,

  laid bare.

  —–

  Perdita wears a new face

  every day of the week.

  The old ones accumulate

  in her wardrobe,

  curling at the edges

  as they dry out.

  —–

  Download Perdita!

  Perdita’s foot, in a glass slipper.

  Perdita’s hand, in marriage.

  Perdita’s head, on a plate.

  —–

  Sugared splice of our zeitgeist.

  —–

  Perdita loses herself in

  hyperfast drowsy porno vignettes,

  mind stuttering,

  body wired,

  in pieces,

  in and out

  of someone else’s

  consciousness.

  —–

  Picture

  an empty stage.

  —–

  When Perdita steps

  into her wardrobe

  she enters herself.

  Scarlet dresses gape at her, fake furs paw her.

  Wandering,

  wondering

  in the woods.

  When you think of her

  she’s stripped bare.

  The clowns

  While you sleep, the clowns walk the tightrope of your life story. The faintest gust of wind topples them. They drift down like leaves.

  —–

  The clowns daub themselves with war paint and don dark suits with silver cuff links and tumble into the sulphurous day.

  —–

  The clowns juggle appointments, ointments, disappointments. They grin when we insert coins in their wide dead mouths.

  —–

  Catching a clown is easy. Wait until he’s on his second bottle and then set your crows on him. When you’ve got him, don’t listen to his pleading.

  —–

  If allowed near a churchyard, the clowns will dig up the dead. They can’t help it! They may bring you a leg, a head, hoping for your approval.

  —–

  Water burns the clowns. Consequently, they bathe in vodka and drink mercury.

  —–

  The clowns enjoy a special diet of strawberries, lamb, azaleas and fear. They can’t abide anything pink. Mirrors and loudspeakers confuse them.

  —–

  Tell me about yourselves, she says to the clowns. But they have nothing to say. The silence stretches and yawns. She sneezes and apologises.

  —–

  The clowns ride unicycles around the rings of Saturn. Astronomers sulk in
their beds. A pie in the face, a supernova. Whatever.

  —–

  Time stutters, the lights blink. The clowns wear our faces, but we don’t wear theirs. We wear nothing. We’re naked, soft, almost zero.

  —–

  The clowns visit a bombed-out hotel. The air tastes of ash. They insist on a room with no view. The pulverised concierge wears a stiff smirk.

  —–

  It is evening. The clowns are ensconced in your cerebellum. The feasting begins soon. The wet grey tables are laden with larval images.

  —–

  Sometimes, the clowns slip out of synch with the ticking world. Slapstick tricks crack their backs. Mums and dads are sent out of the room.

  —–

  The show is over. The clowns sit in rows, dabbing at their grease painted faces. The masks dissolve and their skulls show through.