sometime between 1991 and 1996
a poem for younger readers from my hypertext novel axel-and-alice
the kernel
the kernel
of a giant walnut
sits in my skull
controlling the past
and the present
my version
of my times
bathed in electric wine
the kernel’s wrapped in skin of course
hairy on the top
pale elsewhere
with muscles to mobilise it
round my jaws and face
on each side of the bone box are glued on
two bits of curly cartilage
flaps to catch vibrations
in the air
and holes and wire to funnel them into the walnut
with pinpoint accuracy I turn
to face danger
or Kevin
and of course they’re necessary for practice
when the drum thrum thrum
throbs and steams from the
piano
also
I can’t stop noticing
the two golf balls
that hang on the front of my head
creaking from side to side
like watching a tennis ball
at the Davis cup
bashed back and forward
by Michael Chang and Pat Rafter
forever
these golf balls are tied to the back of my walnut
by delicately stranded copper wires
that run right through my head
to where movies play
back there in the bit where the box is stretched
to make room for the cinema
where I watch reruns of my last birthday party
or check whether or not I cleaned my teeth
before going to bed
or toss and turn to the images that pop in my head
from when Ms Ruby told us about
the auto-da-fé
and other things
too horrible to mention
done to professors and Aztecs and poor old women
in the centuries
that once were greyscale in my mind
dusty, irrelevant
somewhere on a shelf in a library
that smelled of old men