II. A portrait of the Bird King

From TheDeath of the Bird King
by James Knight

The Bird King cuts an impressive figure

when he's out for a Sunday stroll!

Hands clasped

    behind warped back,

          beak jabbing with every

                 twitchy step!

He's quite the patriarch.

 

*

The Bird King grants audience to only the most  

interesting

of people. Having entertained them

and heard their stories,

he eats their brains.

*

Decrees, numerous

   and arbitrary

are issued by the Bird King.

He bans TV, chimneys,

singing, pears.

His subjects have to wear hats

made from murderers' teeth.

*

The Bird King loves his aviary.

In pretty cages: children, the homeless,

   artists, lunatics.

Pigeons strut past,

       cooing and chuckling.

  

*

          The Bird King's dimensions

     are ambiguous.

        To most people

      he's enormous;

             to birds,

                tiny.

It's purely a matter of perspective.

*

The Bird King's palace has no doors.

Lacking the mental apparatus

to cope with their simple mechanisms,

he smashed them all long ago.

*

The Bird King delivers a moving oration:

"NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING."

  

 Words and image by James Knight. You can buy his wonderful books and e-books here.

The monsters

From TheDeath of the Bird King
by James Knight

The first monster was an anthropomorphic bird

      (or ornithoid man)

                called the Bird King.

He belched a cloud of gas,

which became the sky.

The second monster was Medusa,

              the gorgon.

She hissed sweet nothings

that became the sea,

then turned the flesh

        of time

             to stone:

                   the earth.

The third monster was

           Satan.

He gathered the fire

from his belly and heart,

rolled it into a ball and hurled it into the sky.

The sun was born.

The fourth monster was Grendel.

He squatted over the newborn world

and shat out a black lake,

fizzing with the first microbes.

         Life had begun.

The fifth monster named itself Man.

The sixth monster was Language.

Man wrestled with it,

struggling for mastery.

Every time he crushed a word,

two neologisms grew in its place.

The seventh monster was

the Sphinx.

                   Her claws

gouged the earth, tore out

its stone heart: the moon.

She cast it into space,

   among dead stars.

The eighth monster was Tezcatlipoca.

He appeared to people

in dreams and

in mirrors,

blank eyes

inciting

murder.

The ninth monster was Marilyn

Manson.

                 He put the animals into a trance,

                 rewired their DNA,

                 then set them loose,

competing, mutating, restless.

The tenth monster was Insomnia, a grey, blear-eyed beast.

Hasty needles in a haze of veins,

caffeine fix making its madness,

coffee-coughing.

The eleventh monster was $ycorax.

Landing on a sunblasted island,

she spawned,

colonised,

peddled words and spices

to hapless natives.

The twelfth monster

was the

               Minotaur,

                                bellowing

through the tangled nocturnal city,

writing his anguish

      in neon

           over

               dark entrances.

The thirteenth monster was the Beast.

Its heart,

a combustion engine,

                                    thundered

as it manufactured machines

to shred space:

boats, cars, planes.

The fourteenth monster

  was

the Mermaid.

            Octopus ink hair billowing,

                           coral arms,

       pearl eyes.

Ophelia of the oceans,

  she sang her drowning song.

The fifteenth monster was Leviathan.

It surged up from the black seabed and floated,

coil upon coil, exposed, pink,

its hot

     soft

      mouth opening.

The sixteenth monster was the Harpy,

gyrating on a redlit platform.

Punters' fingers reached for meat.

Her feather boa snaked to the floor.

The seventeenth monster was Mammon.

                          The world was his

                           poker table.

                          He gathered the chips,

                           piled them high

                          into skyscrapers.

Tiny people looked up.

The eighteenth monster was the Doll.

      Knees clacking,

dead head lolling,

          blank androgyny.

It blundered through houses, smashing their inhabitants.

The nineteenth monster was the

Clockwork Toy.

     Whirring and wheeling,

it hunted children

            under a bronze moon.

Coiled

   in its gaudy box:

                              deadeye Jack.

The twentieth monster was Memory.

Taunting,

spectral,

                  she flitted

through the mind's maze,

                        never letting herself get

      caught.

The final monster

is

your

imaginary

friend.

Look into the mirror.

He's hiding behind that door,

waiting for you to sleep.

 Words and image by James Knight. You can buy his wonderful books and e-books here.

Uso horario

Era de noche cuando el mar estalló. Todos amanecimos con un gusto salado en los labios y un silencio de olas que nos ensordecía.

Era de día cuando la noche se evaporó. En vela esperamos que el cielo obscureciera mientras el calor aumentaba y nos consumía poco a poco.

Era mediodía cuando las nubes escurrieron hacia la tierra. Una pegajosa seda nos cubrió y no había techo que nos librara del calcinante sol.

Era media noche cuando el aire se desintegró. Inhalamos sueños de asfixia, estiramos brazos y labios para atrapar la última ráfaga de aire.

Caía el atardecer cuando los desiertos se resquebrajaron. Oímos el estruendo y vimos ríos de arena y olas de silencio reptando por doquier.

Se levantaba el amanecer cuando los volcanes se extendieron en ríos subterráneos. Nos despertó el retumbar ígneo y vaporoso bajo la tierra.

Entraba la madrugada cuando las flores se cristalizaron. Dormidos sentimos, de golpe, el aroma de hojas y tallos, hasta entonces eclipsados.

Serie de 7 poemas en prosa originalmente publicados en twitter @minafiction.

Everything was there / Todo estaba ahí

All the kisses we did not taste.

All the love we did not make.

All the mornings we did not create.

All the skies we did not soar.

All the nights we did not ignite.

All the madness we did not share.

All the chances you did not give. 

Todos los besos que no dimos.

Todo el amor que no hicimos.

Todas las mañanas que no creamos.

Todos los cielos que no cruzamos.

Todas las noches que no encendimos.

Toda la locura que no compartimos.

Todas las oportunidades que no diste. 

Poem originally posted in 7 tweets (each language) @minafiction

Poema originalmente publicado en 7 tuits (en cada idioma) @minafiction