Saturday, November 23, 2013

David Bircumshaw


Belgians

Belgians are tall people. Belgians are short people. Some Belgians are chocolate-hating teetotallers.
Some Belgians do nasty things to children. Listen, there are Belgians sobbing, trapped in latex.

Nobody had told the earthworms they were Belgian, even as the executions began. In the distance

there are Belgians drumming, in formation, like an antique redcoat army. The King of the Belgians
had a teddy-bear named Mr Kurtz. There are borders, boundaries, treaties and disputes

and a map hung on a smoke-yellow wall in London. Look, I can see Belgium growing

like a mauve investment. One day it will become a Gulf State. Or an arrangement of someone,

and a dim landscape, sleeping by your side, its names draining away like rivers.

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