KILLING ROSE


KILLING ROSE


“No money can heal
a mind diseased.
This is Hell not are
We out of it”
—Graham Greene
Brighton Rock

It wasn’t just Prewitt —
Comfortless, shaken,
The old bitch in the basement

It was HIS enemy now—
Rose in his room, his bed
A doubled-darkness now

Worse came to worse —
Rose’s certainty that
Love would heal hate

She was domesticating —
Their black alliance into
Something that wasn’t

“I’m so happy,” she said —
“It really can’t be so bad
after all, maybe a baby?”

Pinkie glanced at the bed —
With furious disgust at
What they’d done there

“Not bad?” he said —
“It’s a mortal sin” with
Its lesson thrusting home
_____________

GOONIGHT, GOONIGHT


“appalled by
her ugliness”
—Graham Greene
Brighton Rock

Rose listened with a —
Vicarious agony saying
“A baby might be coming”

Her words lodged —
In his brain “might be”
He’d never thought that!

Pinkie looked at her —
With terror and disgust!
An ugly birth in his bed!?!

A nail in his coffin —
Another life pinning him down
Years of agony ahead

His freedom never lasting —
Doomed like Prewitt with his
Own bitch in the basement

An odd nostalgia —
For the darkest act of all
Began flooding him

Like the tide down there —
Under the pier, greenish
Rotten-smelling, putrid

It was then he decided —
Worse had come to worse
It was time to kill her
________________

CRIMINAL HISTORY


“This were a fine reign
to do ill and not hear
of it again”—The Witch
of Edmonton

If Pinkie could succeed—
In killing Rose, his crime
Would have been “perfect”

Perfect as killing Hale—
Escaping detection, perfect
As Kite killed at the station

He’d sever her legs—
With a nice sharp razor
“Such tits!” would be next

The severed legs would be—
Found in a suitcase at some
Railway station cloakroom

Rose’s dismembered body—
Found later in a trunk at
Charing Cross Station

Her tits discovered—
In a Paddington trunk
A grisly little surprise

Wrapped in brown paper—
Tied with a Venetian-blind
Found tighter than tight

A perfect crime—
Just like Hale’s murder
Nobody tried and convicted

The horrible thing was—
The girl was pregnant with
Pinkie’s son inside her









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