“the colonel,” “hunt simulacrum (Iceland 2040)” and “Hastings (1060/2018)”

“the colonel,” “hunt simulacrum (Iceland 2040)” and “Hastings (1060/2018)”

“the colonel,” “hunt simulacrum (Iceland 2040)” and “Hastings (1060/2018)”

the colonel

was in high dudgeon the colonel yelled

lying flat your pug-rasps

in

in

petering

juxtaposition of stuttered blasts

out get out

brachycephalic wheeze you crawl me

from another chair-slumped

slumber and

flawed

i trip the carer’s alarm beam blundering for your bed

pen to lift you upright

you gasp

flawed

in

in

false false intel

i told mum about our ‘debates’

hitting you once when i was nine

ten your restraint

restraints

threw me threw me

threw me

across

cold metal bed-bars beneath my clutching fingers I hear you

murmuring dreams brewed by drugs

memories whichever

in

in

the room it was a difficult day

face sallow as junket

phosphorescence

threw me against the wall

my arms caging your whippet-sunk chest

you are purpled

galled

and flailing like a banked gudgeon

welts from hoists and bedsores wrought

against

a difficult day(s)

still you wind me

with disdain and all I can think is that you’re going

somewhere

even you don’t know and still

still

I want to

follow you

hunt simulacrum (Iceland 2040)

ice dunes east

glows crease green the pall night

as solar seas leaking into Thule skies

he<>i will seep into them too

soon ground west lies like glass

under myth of lost-child thrums

and wraps of mock blizzard thin

till secret places dwindle

to none i==he croons he<>i i>

<man tracking beast on Samsung screens

quests planned for the pursuer when

microchips kick in attune

divide attune to

scratches on the silver-salver land —

cyber scents trail through fierce strains

of wind hewn raw as

Neptune’s rings replications

roam wild wilder

haunch hands growls stalk pound

roar grunt paw skulk then

two shadows loom waves of he<>i

swelling fast out of this frozen span

yellow bear pelt and blackened

claw thunder my seams

like runes thrown i<>he

come through air rime-sheared

hair spikes and lips cracked

whitehint on my tongue

of loon’s throat red byte-mists

fur my eyes from weeks in the cabin

crimson with code and snow

will twist scarlet when

the moon reels lowin the ebb

of the huntnowout here

in the brutish

wait

to unleash he><i type

myGame.Start();

Hastings (1066/2018)

black hutting juts

slim tilts against smoked-sun sky

unsmoked even hushed

Huss Sole Skate Pollock buys

lap-lap grey tides to groynes

lulling gone thrust away

under now’s currents lies

tramping trudging hauling

still murmur

clank smack of anchor

longboats on shale

glint boots on sweat calves

clear curve off glint thighs

quivers slung bow arms

heads gleam

carved eyes spy beach mid-pass

below black sway sky

marching up to Battle

a thousand thick hands tremble

entering another man’s land

now above bass gravel ground

nothing

but fish lap-lap

tides leave slim tilts jut

against smoked high huts

black

you swam my body soft ammonite an inch snug

in your tripe-lined womb humming

my body uncurled sumo lung ready to squall harmonics

over your alto drone or woo you with winks

of calm you held my body overting itself into

twelve limp as a blanket on your resolute floor

stone scratching my tear-wet temple but

sleep came before you cracked my body

dervish over birch and concrete planks and

struts sea-wind restraints salt-slick pier reaching

out into another day you blew me out my

body yours from the start i swarm

the sound a pebble’s rattle flint in an empty

tin your body cast

About the Author

Melissa Evans

Melissa Evans is an editor based in Oxford UK. She is interested in foresight, hindsight and intersects. Her work is current in Cathexis Northwest Press.