Sunday, August 7, 2016

Rupert M. Loydell, from INNER SPACE GHOST MACHINE


The Last Know Statue of Eddy Daemon, image by Rupert M. Loydell



from INNER SPACE GHOST MACHINE

the afterlife of Eddy Daemon


ATTACKED BY DISTANCE

Eddy is convinced his metallic side looks best,
the robotic karma he has customized since birth
is set to a repeat cycle of fashion, polish, spin,

downpour reverie, shattered sonnets (no sign of
any volta), a brilliant mind driven away from home,
ancestral voices eclipsed by good-looking machines,

all industry and noise. There is a route through
all of Eddy's invisible stories, a sunlit clearing
in the woods. But when and if you ever find it

you will be attacked by distance, jumpcut edits,
a volatile glitch, which will become your death,
a permanent remedy for sleep, an unwanted return

to the ghost harbour, a meeting with Fuzzlebeth
Crackleboy, and a time slot for The Guessing.
Liminal machines play on the levplatz, and you

can forget all about quiet pillows in strange corners,
somewhere shady to die, because you are bound for
intrusive lights, active brain, night games with no feet.

Smile for the camera, anaesthetic for the pain.
The weight of this is like a glittering hand
writing ageless isms, fever syndromes that

unlock tunnel vision, best-forgotten memories
of seashore and wet shoes, your life saved by
faces in the sky, a broken mirror on the floor.


GRACE NOTES

The Archangel Zenophobe prefers it
when there is not a soul around.

Miss Tee is grey and floats between
the goalposts of common sense and age.

Eddy Daemon is a whirlwind spirit
who often takes vacations in hell.

It's warmer and he feels more at home
away from the warmth of the Radiation King.


A PARTIAL RETREAT

Millipede erotica
and the slow train home.


HURRICANE JANE

Keep your eyes on the boys,
you never know what they're doing.
That Eddy Daemon, he's a one;
I don't know whether to lick him
all over or send him home for tea.
Too much commonsense makes for
dull times, living dangerously can
get you in a mess. All you want
are the things I need, everyone
but me loves Eddy Heartbreaker.
You'll have to help out when
he's gone, and when I'm gone
he won't remember the day
Hurricane Jane blew by,
covering up the sun.
This game has no name,
let no man steal your time
under false impressions
or give you no good reason
to ignite the star engine
and take off for the sky.
Keep your eyes on the boys
and ignore this warning.
That Eddy Daemon is the one.


HIDE ME IN DARKNESS

Bacofoil skin graft, basting ladle splint,
domestic war wounds and anaesthetic bite,
white spirit cocktails and chalk dust paninis,
stale bread. The future was electric, the future
is switched off. Eddy Daemon conjures light,
a secondhand glow, as the dirt-grey sun sets
over whatever planet we are marooned on now.
Battery charm bracelet, wind-up pacemaker,
and a petrol engine that runs on gas or might do
if it worked. Eddy improvises, asks questions
he knows the answers to, looks at Delta-Xeroid 5
bright in the purple sky above and beseeches
the Electro Angel for a room for the weekend
and membership of the Hellfire Club. The devil
you do, the devil you didn't, both conspire
and corrupt. We pass the night together
as the sun stands still and I experiment with
representations of space and a piece of string
rescued from the back of the kitchen drawer.


THE UNMAKING (OF EDDY DAEMON)

First, unscrew his arms and legs
and stick them in the cupboard,
secondly remove his heart,
place it in the kidney bowl.
Ignore the twitches and screams,
it takes a while for life to fade;
no anaesthetic is required.
Once the body becomes still
the head can be removed
and the brains scooped out
into the jam jar provided.
Spare eyes are always useful
but are not medically essential,
you must see how you feel.
There is a meat cleaver and
a mincing machine in the shed
to your left. Do what you must,
now wash your hands. Break
your pencil and pens, and then
discard. Never write or talk
about Eddy Daemon again.
There must be no necromancy
or well-wishers wishing well.
Eddy Daemon is no more.
He's consigned to the silence
of an after-hours forgotten hell.




—Rupert M. Loydell