Ted

Quark stood with shoulders broken
like cracked paving slabs, crumbling.
He twitched and wobbled with worry,
sweating with strife.The crowd’s surge like a river of mud,
smelling of rot and disease.
Quark stood amongst the midden,
shifty looking, eyes darting like swallows
or the flick of a Tiger’s tail.
He mouthed a word; a deaf mute’s mewl:“Quark”

People swarmed around him,
blank-eyed and symbiotic,
grey and lightly rusted –
reminding Quark of tanks in World War I,
or the Spanish Civil War.

In squeezing heat, sweat drizzled his face,
it stung Quark’s eyes. Eyes that reflected the streets
of glass and dirt: hard, sharp and smelling peopled.
The pigeons vanished, like steam in freezing air.

A frog eating a fly: Quark licked his lips,
He looked closely, scrutinising every aspect: hoping
for a perfect being. Quark inspects and considers,

wrapped in the fur of the eyeless horde,
reminiscent of silent canaries
in a brass-barred cage.

Quark runs.

Dodging the onslaught, he eyed it,
hovering above the greyness and flesh,
eyes of glowing obsidian. Reflected by windows
Quark’s head tilts,

                            he studied it;
inspecting for damage. The crowd grew soundless and solid.Satisfied — Quark approached — stuttering the special word:
a wicked muttering of faith and patience–
a word spoken with a crow’s caw:

“Quark”

Open-faced, striding through the rush;
palms up cawing at the crowd’s crush;
the city cramped, like a centipede’s pincers,
squeezing the thoughts of Quark.The perfect being hovered there. Above the stone towers.
A floating presence of faith-smog. Above the racket. He saw it all.

As a melon splits — Quark’s mind cleaved.
Great doors swung — the people’s eyes opened,
bookish faces spread wide, like documents.

They scrutinised Quark with reptilian blinks.
They all looked now,
hard looks,
looks of hate and envy. Crushing looks.

Through eyeglasses they squint
and saw it all
with magnification devices, drilling him out –
assessing him
for future usefulness.