Another poem driven out of a workshop challenge from Roddy Lumsden, though this naughtily ignored the terms of the challenge and was co-opted by news events unfolding in Austria and the USA of family’s held in captivity. The Fritzl case was one thing echoing in my mind. Then there was the Garrido case. But the poem isn’t about either story — it’s all about a fractured narrative using the soundscape of news reportage and our relationship with stories of kidnapping and the idea that our neighbours can be secretly monstrous.

Petrol Lives

Several concave children gave evidence
of internal heating deficiencies, ghosts, they said,
even when the next farm was ‘kiss-my-ass’ republican

it would consist of ‘abominable behaviours’ though
we knew parenting was edible pulp.
Anyway, Lucy’s relatives were all cholesterol.

Boiling was never a precise art, not like
having hives and the itching would not subside
for days. ‘Creaking is leaking,’ the factor said.

For now make contact with low-ceilinged
housing units and use the yellow jersey
sweater Maud brought from Saffron’s,

the ‘turkey-handed waster’ as we knew her.
Powering up the certain suit was all cluster
and bluster. No one packed it in. No one moved.

Several planes coalesced into a single black basin,
pin columns of bronze integument failed to hold
the listless creepers. Motion sickness everywhere,

even the loyal hangers-on seemed biting and thick.
No synapse provided proof but the buttresses
left the cellar housing all wishy washy. ‘It was like a pit

of fat. We knew they were in the oil. He was a loafer, too.
Never coming out.’ The desk sergeant made calls:
one with a giant gland and uppity manoeuvres

which held the bones of the family together,
the other, long distance, was less secure, ‘I can break him.
He will cry with the teeth of it.’ On ring back now.