MATTHEW KINLIN
BEAUTY PAGEANT AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
intergalactic hairspray
Xerox copy of her head on the wall
diet of raw egg
microwaved into lung tissue
inside a bright Malaysian studio
where they boiled her hands in acetone
pink pearl fingernail
broken beneath the blue lamp
man with a microphone and a greased lip
nicotine in his bloodstream
pinned the number 8 to her grandmother dress
gaunt surrender of blackbirds
crashed from tress
as she gazed at the audience and smiled
placed a skull inside magnolia faces
a skeleton ran out
in front of a moving vehicle
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EDWARD V OF ENGLAND
darkness made bright
in the hands of a madman
a garden in Suffolk
where wildflowers grow
campion and marsh orchid
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FAUST
he built a doll from the parts of his mother
no longer needed
and stitched them up tightly
with golden Belgian thread
when he asked her name
she turned to the wall
all the splinters
twisted inside her throat
he held the scalp down
with fishing wire and a series of hooks
sang to her of the North Sea
walruses and sea lions and earless seals
it was the first of December
when she looked through the window
saw him hanging from the old oak tree
feet waltzing on the snow
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Matthew Kinlin lives and writes in Glasgow. His published works include Teenage Hallucination (Orbis Tertius Press), Curse Red, Curse Blue, Curse Green (Sweat Drenched Press), The Glass Abattoir (D.F.L. Lit) and Songs of Xanthina (Broken Sleep Books).