
you know he’s a bad kid from the first scene:
his sister’s on the phone
talking to her boyfriend
he comes in
poems her to death
sinister music
cut forward twenty years
kid’s in the psych ward
with an English professor
still trying to teach
this kid form
roll back to the suburb
Burns Night
sixteenth birthday
of a buxom blonde
she’s walking home
who’s that behind a tree?
she hears someone whisper
something in free verse
cats meow and dogs bark
our buxom blonde’s
going to a sleepover
her best friend bangs
her boyfriend
both die minutes later
an unrhyming stanza
straight through their chests
for some obscure reason
our buxom blonde
heads over to an empty
house on a hill
the door opens to a large room
illuminated in moonlight
the walls are covered in verse
celebrating the moon
she recites them, stands in front
of a mirror
suddenly he’s standing
beside her
a strike of thunder
the room turns black
and sinister music plays out
she’s running
she falls
he’s standing over her
plunging at her
with his pen
she grabs his weak wrist
snaps it in half
kicks him in the balls
and she runs
police are called
choppers and dogs
they capture the poet in a field
guns drawn
couplets called
a shot rings
he falls
his blood mixes with the rain
the girl is alright
shaken up though inside
and can’t bear to read prose
no more
she stays up late at night
writing short, unstructured lines
about murder
kindred spirit
and remorse
Simon Alderwick is a poet and songwriter from the UK. His work is featured or forthcoming in Whatever Keeps The Light On, Re-side and the Squiffy Gnu anthology, among others. Follow him on Twitter @SimonAlderwick.