Poetry by William Atkins

PURPLE TOOTH


Once Tooth had worked through each mineral,
splitting atom and ant from ant and posterior,
he saw the earthworm and split that in two, too.

He poisoned the dirt for its comrades to eat and
split the grass in half to deafen them.
Some wretched torture that was.

Tooth snapped veins and arteries from spiders’ webs and
wove blankets for them to cover the pain with because,
boy, it was getting cold ‘round then.

He cut the wire on the stove so that families would starve
If they didn’t get with the old ways.
Things were so much simpler those days…

Tooth thinks of his Gother sometimes and cries
but no one see’s. Not the bees, not the birds nor the flies.
It wasn’t easy since they fell apart.

But milk teeth always were a pain.

Tooth saw the baby in its pram, stifled a tear. He angered.
He started to charge with a spear on his head but a voice
stopped him, said

“Not today, Sonny Jim…
It’s nowhere NEAR harvest time.
Don’t cut off a smile just to scar it.”

So Tooth dug his root into the earth, and
soaked back up his poison to use for another time,
hoping it was a good year to barrel age.




Tooth's first dance


There’s the ledge.

It seems that Tooth has been poking out his head from many angles here. He’s about ready.
The music isn’t right though. It’s too tame and slow, like dinner jazz.
How is anybody meant to swing? Do they know this??

Tooth has had his eye on those trousers, on that top.
There’s an unsure smile above it, like a timid dog that approaches hand for the first time. 
Waits for tongue to complete the sunset that was so clouded over before that no dreams
                 mattered.

Tooth thinks its funny how so little changes.

A slow song… good. Maybe the chance.
Tooth yearns for throbbing vein, he aches for skin.
He’s quiet though. He waits, he watches with
kingfisher stealth.

Maybe one day he’ll find a partner or magician to change
the way he thinks. That’s what Tooth hopes.
Tooth can’t change though. He’s a sharp wit and harsh critic.
A kind soul, misunderstood. Strange-hearted.

That’s what Tooth thinks.

He sees Lip and asks for a dance. Lip dances better than Tooth.
Tooth, however, uses one half of his wit to cut through Lip’s dress and
another to cut through her skin.
He sees Lip in rags.

The whole room is in an uproar, every molecule,
a vocal chord. An echo round a mouth in distraught confusion.
Red is on the floor, all around Lip who lies in shock,
an island in the Red Sea.

Anyone there who is Eye or is Lid is close to drowning.

Tooth is back at the ledge with a glass of wine, now.
He turns red.

No one points the finger though. Tooth was Tooth
and Lip was Lip and that was it,

and the music just wasn’t right for a night
like this.




Tooth: A Decision


Tooth was handed down a scale.
It was bronze with two undulating discs.
Some strange dance it gave.
Onto one side he placed a fish, dead and gutted
with its eye turned out toward the ghost of thought.
On the other he placed a bird, feathers reddened in patches neck
loping over the edge.
Around its beak hung the final echo of its cry.
Such equality in death, thought Tooth.
When living, this bird used wings to soar and
this fish used gills to breathe yet no sea nor air could
house the other.

Tooth saw that there were three worlds.
He struck a match and burnt this impossible image immediately.
Placing half the ashes on each creature he incinerated their
carcasses as one.

As they flew across fields and woodland they fell onto
a stream that sat as a scar across the green land,
the sky was grey with fire.
From a safe distance Tooth watched as a blue streak dropped into the stream
& shot back up with its prey.
Some kind of monster sewing together the below and above just
to make it all seem the same.

Tooth saw the monster and saw it was too late.
He was on the scale now, rocking like a boat.
On the other side was placed a fingernail.
Such inequality in life, thought Tooth.
The useless excesses put up on trial whilst hair still
grows and eyes still shine.

Tooth and Nail were left there for eternity,
judging nothing else
but rot.

Bio: William Atkins is 26 years old and lives in London. He has been writing poetry for about 3 years now and aims only to better his work. He cares a lot for reality and its occasional surrealism, especially in Nature

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