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The Writers Voice
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Deus ex Machina
by
Paddy Screech
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You were Eva Peron and Pippi Longstocking,
Albert Camus and Mutley,
Cordelia, Regan and the Fool,
Sophie enobled in the agony of choice,
Little John and Little Voice;
You were Jan Leeming and Joan of Arc,
parents, watching, over poppets in the park,
my father, watching, from his captain's chair,
my mother, young, with a Narnia of hair.
You entered, en masse, like Ariel,
and took the World with you when you left,
like Atlas, loaded with the shopping
off home to stock the kitchen cupboard,
and put your (the slipper fits) feet up.
You were here
then you were there
and now
with unnavigable years between
an Old Testament God
you are everywhere.
I, like a stopped clock, rarely get it right.
Despite my nervous ticks, my hands won't work
and point, insistently, nowhere.
There is a pocket, somewhere
that contains a key
that tesselates with my mechanism.
I sit here, ticking,
waiting,
to be wound up again,
waiting,
for time to start
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