First draft of a new 'Wizard' poem

*Snap* *Click* *Thwack!*
My heart armour... is intact.
Mission target sighted!
There is NO turning back...

It is a quest to retrieve
the most awesome treasure.
Most power-reaping life spark!
-yet most quiescent pleasure.
For its lure, a king could murder,
forsake riches, live in rags!
It's legend is sung in many lands tongue.
The magic of...

TEA BAGS!

Pyramid ones are preferable,
though square or circular's fine.
No nobler elixir flows
within your land or mine.
Without tea, I turn wild as wolf,
tea's name, I howl and bark it.
Tea can save if we can brave
the trials of...
...Supermarket...

O... ...Supermarket
where the happiest heart could crack.
For tea, I don my heart armour,
*Snap* *Click* *Thwack!*

O... ...Supermarket
enslaves her worker’s dreams.
Promised opportunity.
Most will never leave.

Supermarket gives her drones
a few loose pennies to hold
whilst hoarding for herself great piles
of diamonds, rubies, gold.
Supermarket's clones accept,
blind follow their leader's call.
If they didn't take her pennies, well...
they might have nothing at all.

Their withering queen, deflowering thought,
dictates when they should eat,
when they should rest, when they should smile,
free will is obsolete.
This isn't life.
These drones exist in undead misery.
How I fear their zombie touch
when I want to buy tea.

Watch flaking hopes decay,
fall wasted to the floor.
A zombie touch could shrivel your soul.

I can't go there no more.

Their stares en-flare fears I can't share,
shoot shivers through my blood.
One touch could shatter my heart armour,
*slash* *smash* *thud*

Friend, hero, valiant knight,
heart armour firm as metal,
survive these Supermarket ghouls
and I'll put on the kettle.

Spirit

Spirit (a duet poem, spoken by Wizard and the man)

“The soul of an ancient eight-armed
ninja drag queen dragon king
is locked inside my shower
and joins in when I sing.
Sometimes we dissect biscuits,
wonder why the sky’s so long.
Yes, I go in naked.
Nothing sexual’s going on.

But is my hoover lying when he
begs me not to clean
because he swears there’s goblins in my
carpet never seen?
He says they put the milk back
in the fridge when I forget.
But drag queen dragon king and me,
we haven’t seen them yet.”

Panic doesn't understand
my brother's new wife's Sunday dinner etiquette
or what my hands ought to do in interviews
or what to say to friends of friends' Dads.
Panic's clumsy.
Breaks things.
Has no respect for folk who really are what they own-
comfortably cluttered with too many rooms,
never touched, never looked at.

“Ursula the kettle said
her work wear makes her blue
so I wrap her up in tinsel
every time she makes a brew.
I never met a human
on this Earth or anywhere
who every time they make the tea
puts tinsel in their hair.”

Sometimes when I’m out
my heart starts to throat slap,
flap like dying fish,
taste like grated carrot in sawdust and sherbet dip.
Panic tells me I've too many fingers.
want to escape,
eyes want to roll loose,
eyes kick inside lids,
steel tear-capped kicks.
Eyes bite,
Panic slavers.
Everyone else sips cocktails and nods.

...

I've not lost it.
There's a key
in my skull
engraved:

"Here,
put this in your ear."

Listen.
The key turns my ear lock.
Listen.
I hear nothing.

Leave sounds for real folk,
clumping around in their fancy size nine realities,
big, ugly feet.
Their ideas look like feet,
stuffed deep in sock,
sweaty,
hidden ugly.
Too repressed to know Panic
if it bit them on the brain.

“They’re just husks of mortgage. Suduku stained."

I don't have feet
or anything ugly.
I am the subtext of wordless night,
the blinding light of total darkness.
See, you can't hold down the sky.
Gentle as tide, pulled from body,
free of frenzied skin, beyond breath,
bound to bone by
the thinnest of truths.
I’m a weightless parade wrapped round
a sun beam guiding my body home.
Guide it home.
Guide me home.

"But is my hoover lying when he
begs me not to clean
because he swears there’s goblins in my
carpet never seen?
See, you can’t see what matters
caught up in the city drone.
There’s shelves of elves in sequined bells
hop scotching here at home.
The thinnest of truths
binds the moons and oceans, Sun to Earth.
We’re rock unsolid fantasy,
know what magic’s worth.
Everything we need is here.
Fantastic, roof to floor!
Nothing outside this flat matters.”

No.
I know what my body is for.

It might not be for my brother's wife's dinner
or money or make-up or manners

but I think it's for caring when someone else panics
and helping them find their way home.