Mysterious Stark

Another imagined urban faerie...

Behind the

cold, grey

concrete stairs

in the corner of the lowest of ground floors

in this

multi-storey

car park,

is a dark

and mouldy

den.

In the den,

so dark and mouldy,

that lies behind

the cold, grey

concrete

stairs,

is a gathering together

of leaves

and crisp packets

flattened cans

and sweet wrappers

and the cellophane from boxes of cigarettes

half a page of a newspaper

and some more

dry

dead

leaves.

This is the treasure

of

Mysterious Stark.

This is the home

of

Mysterious Stark.

He makes

no sound except

the sound that he catches

from the feet of the people

walking

up and

down

and up

the concrete steps

and across the

car park floors.

He grabs those sounds,

wraps them up in city mumbles

and rolls them up the stairs again.

He catches the clicks

of opening doors

and

slamming doors

and he

sharpens them

and spears them back onto Level Three.

He sucks up the noise of engines starting,

and he drinks them down

then belches them out into the grey

afternoon.

On special, windy Saturdays –

he waits for people coming out

of the supermarket,

their hands tied down

heavy

with carrier bags full of baked beans.

Then

he picks up a mighty

mittful of grit

and throws it in their faces,

right in their eyes

and he laughs at them

as they blink and cry.

But he’s not always so grouchy

sometimes just for fun –

in his mouldy dark den –

he catches

the smallest corner of the wind

and ties it by its tail

to the hand rail

so that it can’t escape.

Then

he stirs the loose end

of the wind

into his pile of treasure

and chuckles to himself

as

round and round

the leaves chase the crisp packets and

the sweet wrappers chase

the cellophane

and

the half a page

of newspaper

covers itself with wind glue

and

blows itself

right around the shoe

of a man named

Ken.