Harris Coverley

RED ON SILVER

It's running right out of me...running right out, beside me, onto the floor. I did nothing to him...I walked past him, the pallid and wiry guy in the hoodie leaning against the post...he asked me something, I didn’t quite get it. He pulled his right hand out of his left pocket...I felt the blade in me before I saw it retract: red on silver, shining in the streetlight, the flash of neon. And now it’s running right out of me...pooling at my side. I’m accosted by soft voices...a stranger’s coat dragged over me, smelling of alien sweat, bitter and foul, but I can’t complain. There is murmuring and chatter and whispers and giggles...the screaming has stopped, not mine of course...I don’t have much energy left to scream, or even to mumble. And it’s still running right out of me...on and on. Everything around me is a ghost, an outline, a rough blur. There’s a flashing blue light either a million metres or a thousand miles away that refuses to come any closer, and a woman with dyed black hair and dull green eyes in a white leather jacket whom I’ve never met before keeps telling me that it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay...okay, okay...and yet still...it’s running right out of me...into the gutter and down the drain...all those years, waiting for the languorous rain to come out of the blue night and wash it all away...


Harris's YouTube video reading of "Red on Silver":



Subscribe and turn on Notifications for Channel 52.


Harris confesses: "This is actually a complete re-write of a poem from several years ago. There had been a massive spate of stabbings across Britain, and having just been walking around the city centre the realisation came to me that there was no particular reason why I couldn’t possibly be a victim."


"Along with previously in The Five-Two, HARRIS COVERLEY has had verse published in Polu Texni, California Quarterly, Star*Line, Spectral Realms, Scifaikuest, Novel Noctule, Better Than Starbucks, Corvus Review, The Cannon's Mouth, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal, View From Atlantis, and many others. He lives in Manchester, England.

Harris Coverley

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

a salami up the sleeve
chocolate bars down the sock
a pack of cured and sliced beef in the upper gut
that gap between the ribs
a bag of frozen oven chips in the back trousers might burn
but my best ever was a spatchcock chicken
hidden in a big baggy beanie hat

it’s a question of acquired skill
and not getting caught
that helps too
skirting guards who don’t really give a shit
cameras ‘ere and there

hey, what I can I say: I run a social service
I need cash
the poor bastards on the estate need food
good and cheap
it’s supply and demand
it’s business

i’n’t that what the government wants though?
personal responsibility?
social entrepreneurship?
private enterprise?
up by your bootstraps?
do a job others are unwillin’ to do?

what?
yer want kids goin’ hungry, eh?
it’s all right for some...

you take the risk
and you reap the profits

yeah, I’ve been known to keep some nice stuff for meself
but shit bro, ain’t that my right?
my prerogative as they say?
I got it...

let me tell you:
I’m a walking shopping trolley when I get there
I’m like a celebrity makin’ some big public appearance
the smiles, the smiles...
and the respect

at the end of the day
I’m just doin’ my bit for the local community
I’m like the Robbin’ Hood
or that Jesus guy
or that Mahamma Gandri

you rake it forward
not back
what goes ‘round comes ‘round
involuntary charity
faceless corporate powers
marginal losses
yah-yah-yah-yeah...
yer know the score...

well, d’yer want ‘out?
then keep movin’ on...
I got my regular customers comin’...


Jay Stringer's YouTube video reading of "Private Enterprise":



Subscribe and turn on Notifications for Channel 52.


Harris confesses: "This comes from watching a documentary in which some teenagers had made a real profession of shoplifting food and selling it to the poor people on a council estate. I've also personally known a lot of people who lift. I just wanted to explore that little subculture they have."


HARRIS COVERLEY has verse published or forthcoming in Polu Texni, California Quarterly, Star*Line, Corvus Review, Spank the Carp, Better Than Starbucks, EgoPHobia, Poets' Espresso Review, Once Upon A Crocodile, The Rye Whiskey Review, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and many others. He lives in Manchester, England.