Friday 16th November

COMIC BOOK SUPER HERO FANTASY FIGURES:

Kidderminster crumbles but in my dreams is filled with bustling chippy’s
cooking with lard, news agents selling 60’s American comics & washing
machine showrooms selling rock guitars to languid boys with hair to their
arses. That’s where we dressed in brown paper costumes, imagined we were
super heros, wire coat hangers for weapons. We adventured up the back stairs
of decaying launderettes to rooms that smelled of rot & mould. Men showed up
at the door every day smelling of spice & countries to the East. Lonely men who
smiled but looked distant as they talked who left their washing, collarless shirts
& dusty suit jackets in whose pockets we discovered exotic coins we saved for them,
but some never never came back. Their clothes lay neat, smelling sweet & English
on shelves, in back rooms, wrapped in brown paper where we glanced at them
weekly, wondering if they’d forgotten or found some other fate in the alleys of
a crumbling town.

(K)