Minotaur

No one has come since the clock stopped.
The bareheaded lightbulb sings its mosquito song,
and the Minotaur shakes his great muzzle
at air that is lousy with echoes.

In this labyrinth of whitewashed corridors,
with waterstained ceilings and cracked tiles
the Minotaur staggers in a shaggy haze,
over fagburned lino, between the clanging pipes.

And flies eke out their deaths on yellowed windowsills
patiently, slowing to a dying kick.
The Minotaur swallows his chains,
and bellows at thoughts as muzzy as oxblood.

The Minotaur's heavy tongue lolls,
and his bloodthreaded eyes veer endlessly upwards;
blunt paws mauling the lardcoloured air
as he hunts for the centre of his maze.

Mrs. Thomas vanishes

Threading her way through supermarket crowds
she began to wonder if she was entirely visible,
when her ankle was smacked by a trolley, pushed
by a man too rude to apologise.

So she made herself a carapace from a stout camel coat,
and wore a large and tasteless hat; even so
the next week, queuing timidly for cheese,
she found that she could not get served at all.

She discovered that she could shout at people,
or sunbathe in the garden, wearing not a stitch;
but when she went to town, the heavy feet
of shoppers battered her half to death.

Then her cat, ignoring coaxings and sardines
stalked off to live with the family next door,
and quiver-whiskered slight grey mice
danced on her bedspread all night long.

One day, she peered into her hallway mirror
and wondered who it was she came to look for.
That was the week that men arrived to clear the house,
whilst she flapped and screamed about them, outraged and unheard.