By the Road to the Emerald City

by Alan Girling

Think of the colour, and it is you: your mind, your body and your clothes. It warns me, the man, of danger, and warms the bull in me, pulls me deep inside where gladly I love, die and am reborn in you. Mars wars, the Bordeaux grows, and here on this sea of poppies we get high, make it and sink into bliss together. Here I mine the twinned cinnabar crystals of your soul, kiss you with cherries, take you with strawberries and massage your beating heart with the unerring fingers of a Chi master. I am your dog Clifford, adoring and devoted, Erik your Viking, untamed and vigorous, and always I am your beet, your twizzler, your Manfred von Richthofen - le petit, le diable, le baron rouge. Think of the colour, and it is me.

6S

Alan Girling used to write short stories, but these days it's mainly poetry and other musings. He actually suspects many of his old stories were really poems in disguise. Examples of both can be found in such publications as FreeFall, Blue Skies, Hobart, The MacGuffin, Smokelong Quarterly, Snow Monkey, Ken*again, River Walk Journal, ink, sweat and tears, and In My Bed Magazine.