Alan Moore - Jerusalem

The vagrant phantom loudly now decries

His captive’s deeds and whimpered alibis

Though Den, just then pressed down beneath the floor,

Cannot discern the nature of the crime

Yet sees its punishment. For his offence

The prisoner, stripped of his torn attire,

Is made to kneel, unsure what to expect,

While Kenny, wooden phallus teased erect,

Learns that the roughneck revellers now require

An act unnatural in every sense.

As both performers start to moan and bleat

In their abrasive coitus they enthral

The spiteful, spectral spectators, who sing

“We’re jolly and we smoke, but here’s the thing.

There’s some stuff that we care for not at all

And serve rough justice here above the street

Where all the arseholes of the ages meet,

Thereby democratising Milton’s fall

With Satan overthrown and mob made king!”

Den feels as if he may be settling

Back to a real world almost past recall

Through spit and sawdust at the phantoms’ feet

Into an intermediary zone.

As from some party in an upstairs flat

He hears the rosy-cheeked man’s howl of pain,

Forced to do that which goes against the grain,

Then sinks back to Fat Kenny’s habitat,

In darkness with the lamp-bulb clearly blown

And finds, now the experience is done,

His host slumped on the couch; him in his chair.

The jumping up and pacing, it would seem,

Were merely part of his unearthly dream.

Exhausted, leaving questions in the air,

He slides into a kind oblivion,

Knowing, as all thoughts into shadow pass,

The dead to be a literal underclass.

Out of grey nullity to consciousness

He comes, reluctant, one fact at a time,

Aware of self, of where he is and when,

His body in the chair. Eyes slitted, Den

Notes, after the stark, solarised sublime,

That there is colour, though not in excess

Nor well-distributed. The sun, discreet,

Leans through the curtains to bestow a kiss

On Kenny’s slumbering paunch. Beneath Den’s tongue

He finds and spits out the exhausted bung

Of salvia then, needful of a piss,

Rises unsteadily to his bare feet

To navigate that unfamiliar place,

The hallway with his bag, Fat Kenny’s coat,

Then up loud, bare-board stairs to find the loo.

Fully awake now he peers down into

Stained porcelain, the filthy toilet’s throat,

Its exhalations lifting in his face

As memories rise too, sharp as a knife:

The porch of Peter’s Church, his student loan

And, oh God, did he suck Fat Kenny’s prick?

He’s overwhelmed. It’s all too much, too quick.

Den retches and with a despairing moan,

In its entirety, throws up his life

For some few minutes, doubled in a crouch,

Then flushes. In the rattling pipes, trapped air

Bellows in anguish like a minotaur.

Mouth wiped, Den clumps back down to the ground floor

And the mauve gloom of a hushed front room where

Fat Kenny still sleeps, supine, on the couch,

Extinguished pipe clasped in one pudgy hand.

Though keen to leave, Den feels it only right

To say goodbye. “I’m off, then.” No reply.

He notices a flat, green-bellied fly

Orbit the still, shaved skull and then alight

But though he sees he does not understand

Why his host shows no sign of coming round.

“I said I’m going.” Den begins to feel

Uneasy and as he steps closer spies

The motionless breast and unblinking eyes.

With realisation comes a shattering peal

Of sudden dreadful and incessant sound,

A circling and swooping banshee roar

That shivers glass and sets dogs barking but

Appears to have no source save him. Den screams,

An improvised Kurt Schwitters piece that seems

Expressive although inarticulate

And backs in the direction of the door

Which, unlocked, yields at once and opens wide

Whence dazzling rays pour through the gaping hatch

To blind him. Crumpled sleeping-bag forgot

And slammed door ringing like a rifle shot,

Den takes off without bothering to snatch

His shit-smeared sneakers from the step outside

Or to look back. In truth, he doesn’t dare.

The grass is cold and wet — Den has no socks —

As he sprints past the tower blocks — nor a plan —

But then in Crispin Street he spots a man

Whose pale blue eyes and thinning flaxen locks

Are oddly reminiscent, but from where?

Upon Den’s lips unspoken epics burn

And seek release, drugged visions that might be

As those of Coleridge, Cocteau, Baudelaire.

By now he’s reached the guy with sparse blonde hair

Who eyes the gasping boy uncertainly

And asks “Are you alright, mate?” with concern

Made clear. Is Den alright? Aye, there’s the rub,

He thinks, one with De Quincy and Rimbaud,

Preparing for an image-jewelled account

To spill forth as though from some Bardic fount

But all he can come out with is “Yes. No.

Fuck me. Oh, fuck me, I was up the pub.

That’s where I’ve been all night, up in the pub.”

His mouth won’t stop. “They wouldn’t let us go.”

Won’t pause. “Fuck me. Fuck me, mate, help us out.

It was a pub”, as if that were in doubt,

Language bereft of any metered flow

With words recurring, echoing like Dub

Through burned-out ganglia. The stranger’s stare

Is quizzical. “Hang on, you’ve lost me, mate.

Was this a lock-in, then, this pub they kept

You at all night?” Although Den’s barely slept

He knows the man is trying to judge his state

Of mind. “Which was it, anyway? Up where?”

“Up there. Up in the roof. I mean the pub.”

Den babbles, but the blond man nods his head.

“Up in the roof? Yeah, I’ve had that”, and then

He mentions, in the corners, little men.

Den strains to comprehend what’s just been said,

Brain washed, or at least given a good scrub.

“Yeah. Up the corners. They were reaching down.”

Seeming to understand the man takes out

Some cigarettes and offers one to Den

With calm acceptance bordering on Zen

Then lights both. Den squints. What is it about

This quarter of the unforgiving town

That brings such things? His saviour tells him how

He isn’t mad but will take time to mend;

Provides more cigarettes; offers a tip