The Phantom Gallery: 2012

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Holylands Early Morning

Steve Yelverton In Memorial

ORDINARY FREAK - Steve Yelverton

Tidy up your life, Son. You're starting to see lizards.
I'm getting tired of you calling me Iguana;
I am your Dad. Your mother looked like a Pygmy Goat
the night I picked her up,
hitch-hiking on The Freeway of Abandon.
Her bicycle was scrunched up, sadly, beside her.
The Fuchsias on the edge of the freeway tinkled
like delicate bells, trilling into the recess
of your mother's Reptilian brain,
thrilling me to the bone.

I put your mother in the back-seat of my Beetle,
Boy, & drove her to the mountains.
She made me feel like the Dalai Lama.
I married your mother at once, Son.
We mated in a corn circle
on the outskirts of the oblivion
we were living in.

The condom popped & out you came,
a six inch salamander,
oozing sticky juices onto the grass
like a greasy hot-dog.

We took you in & loved you, Son,
when we could have made a fortune
selling you to the circus.
We never looked twice
when you hung from the rafters
by your tail, laughing like a Troll,
scaring off our guests.

You are my glow in the dark Salamander.
You are my son. I trained you to be human.
Don't talk to me like I'm something a crocodile
vomited up after drinking too much vodka.
You've been trying to change your genes
since the day you were a foetus.
You can slither all you like
but you will never unzip your body
& trade it in for a new model.

Sit down, eat your cornflakes, & do the dishes, Son.
You are ordinary. We love you. We are average.
When you die we will have you stuffed,
& stick you out in the corn-field
to scare off the crows.