Poetry

Fake Blood

Cold red like a polyester mat
stretches from the character’s plastic
spleen and smears across an impotent
knife. The man behind the stage wall
struggles to find breath,
his life ebbs onto a sterile floor, sanitised
like a hospital in preparation
for the next fatality.

A synthetic pool calmly rests on faux wood.
Eyes, exhausted to their final breath,
sink behind weary lids. Limbs sag
under the pressure of weighted necessity,
folded in and comfortably twisted.

An acrylic mouth sighs through
cracked-bottle-lips,
and red string loosely
stains his tidal chest;
two props swell and calmly subside
against a well rehearsed fiction
while a thousand glassy eyes shimmer in mourning.

John Darley