Saturday, August 25, 2012

Metaphorazine

a poem by Jeff Noon

Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Every clockwork day. Says it burns his house down, with a haircut made of wings. You could say he eats a problem. You could say he stokes his thrill. Every clingfilm evening, climb inside a little pill. Intoxicate the feelings. Play those skull-piano blues. Johnny takes Metaphorazine.
He's a dog.

Lucy takes Simileum. That's not half as bad. She's only like a moon goose gone slithering, upside-down the sky. Like a tidal wave of perfume, like a spillage in the heart. With eyes stuck tight like envelopes, and posted like a teardrop. Like a syringe, of teardrops. Like a dripfeed aphrodesiac, swallowed like a Cadillac, Lucy takes Simileum.
She's like a dog.

Graham takes Litotezol. Brain the size of particles, that cloud inside of parasites, that live inside the paradise of a pair of lice. He's a surge of melted ice cream, when he makes love like a ghost. Sparkles like a graveyard, but never gets the urge, and then sings Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! like a turgid flatfoot dirge. Graham takes Litotezol.
He's a small dog.

Josie takes Hyperbolehyde. Ten thousand every second. See her face go touch the sky, when she climbs that rollercoaster high. That mouth! Such bliss! All the planets and the satellites make their home inside her lips. It's a four-minute warning! Atomic tongue! Nitrokisserene! Josie takes Hyberbolehyde.
She's a big dog.

Alanis takes Alliterene. It drags a deeper ditch. And all her dirty dealings display a debonair disdain. Her dynamo is dangerous, ditto her dusky dreams. Dummies devise diverse deluxe débâcles down dingy  darkened detox driveways. Alanis takes Alliterene.
She's a dead dog, ya dig?

Desmond takes Onamatopiates.
He's a woof woof.

Sylvia takes oxymorox. She's got the teenage menopause. Gets her winter-sugar somersaults from sniffing non-stick glue. She wears the V-necked trousers, in the blind-eye looking-glass. Does the amputated tango, and then finds herself quite lost, in the new old English style!. Sylvia takes Oxymorox.
She's a cat dog.

But Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Look at those busted street lamp eyes, that midnight clockface of a smile. That corrugated tinflesh roof of a brow. The knife, fork and spoon of his fingers, the sheer umbrella of the man's hairdo! the coldwater bedsit of his brain. He's a fanfare of atoms, I tell you! And you know that last, exquisite mathematical formula rubbed off the blackboard before the long summer holidays begin? Well, that's him. Speeding language through the veins, Johnny takes Metaphorazine.
He's a real dog.