Kenny Knight

The house is where the birds have come to land and live
from above and beneath the ceiling they sleep and fly.

The house was built for stories to be collected and read.
From cover to undercover, the sperm of archaeology
in the eyes of the architect.

The house is dark. We make movies in our slap.
The scripts never make sense come the sequel of morning.

The house is five miles from the sea and its gangs of pirates,
who bob about, ship-lift and salvage
with pre Industrial Revolution tools of sword and flintlock.

The bed and the sea bed are twinned with the Earth and the sky.

The house has two bedrooms with brown and blue windows.

At night I walk through the lands of the house,
thinking about an horizon of flesh,
thinking about the coven of the bed.

I'm an owl in the dark my skin is invisible.
This is my tree, in the neighbourhood of others,
my home in the sky, above the bungalows by the river.

Every night inside the house I emigrate to the land of sleep,
to my second home under the duvet free of the street corner
until morning finds me homesick.

I know my bedtime movies will never be shown
on bedtime television my bedtime stories will never be told,
but who will write down and record the minutes of sleep?

Inside the house, the radio talks to itself and I talk to myself,
and talk to myself. a language shared with others
not included in this conversation.

Inside the house the television dominates
with twenty four hour small talk.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy and thinking about eating
a bar of Galaxy from the underground supermarket.

All the pretty lights are galloping across the room.

The cowboy movie is wild
but the television is a domestic appliance.

The house is in orbit around the stun and back,
like walking hand in hand around the block
we rise with the sun for breakfast and set the table for tea.

I take your hand and fall asleep gazing into your brown eyes.
When you're away from home I write love poems
and sleep with them, in the aftermath of your arms.

Late at night I walk through the quiet rooms of the house.
While I'm yours I'll never know love in a bungalow.

Some nights I snore like a foghorn
and mermaids grow feet to reach me.

Tomorrow I may wake to find you crocheting a hat
in the bright colours of a flowered I lay
on a quilt in the back garden.

I'm a happily married man.
I've been happily married for two weeks now.
Celebrating the anniversary of a fortnight of bliss.

The house we live in is in the constellation of romance.
The house we live in is on Honicknowle Lane.

I'm in the greenhouse with the bumble bee queen.
We're just come back from our honeymoon
in Buckingham Shed. We're eating dinner
and organising an exhibition of wedding memorabilia.

The future's looking bright for double egg and chips,
but the past never invites you back for lunch.