I'm an old woman
		My muse is a rug.

		Or is it
		the other way around?

		Nevermind.

		Back to the old woman
		whose withered,
		fierce little hands
		clutch a wire rug-beater.

		Determination.

		One of us
		is slung over
		a worn hemp washline,
		ass in the air.

		A wizened
		hunchback playing golf
		the crone strikes

		a majestic pose
		just before the blow is struck.

		Then the furious
		cudgeling begins.

		After a good score
		of whacks
		and thumps
		there's time for a short cackle.

		And then there is
		no ink left in the pot.

         ON 
COMPOSITION

Philosophy, poetry and painting are all tied inextricably to images. The internal image drives us both to create and to represent. This landscape of images within is the driving force behind Oliver Perrin's poetry.

It is a world where the movement of dancing cats describes elaborate patterns on threadbare old rugs, where hunchbacks dig holes in the ground to whisper secrets into them. Fear slowly slides the mask of desire into place.

Oliver Perrin has published non-fiction in Alexandria, the journal of the western cosmological traditions. He is the former editor of the journal Thanateros, and is a regular contributor to the award-winning Icelandic web magazine deCode. His fiction has appeared in Night magazine and the journal Phantasm.

He currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey where he is completing a novel.

			Related Links
	
			Oliver Perrin's Page2 Project
			http://www.monumentalstudios.com/oli/Page2

			The Alexandria Journal
			http://cosmopolis.com/journal/index.html

			deCode Virtual Magazine
			http://this.is/decode/

		How the grin
		On a child's clear face
		May be so unsettling.

		But you must gather close
		And remember.

		Drop your sacks of
		Gray mortar
		Your dinted spades
		And remember

		That no limit moment
		Before the windowless hovel
		Of whys and wherefores
		Raised its bald noggin
		Over the teeming forest of
		Could've been.

		That was when
		The marvelous stalked
		The high roads
		With grin of filed teeth.

		There you will see
		Cunning tree whose branches
		Harbor the lanky man
		In a black suit and
		Smoking stove-pipe hat

		Perhaps even the wolves
		That softly pad the nighted
		Nursuries whispering
		Tales their mother taught them
		How the rat king lost his teeth
		And found them again.

		You may even see
		Where your dream
		Comes to rest;
		To draw strength
		For another night
		Of scattering mousetraps
		For your lies:

		There in the garden
		Mounted backwards
		On a cross-eyed black goat.

I'LL  TELL   YOU 
IF YOU'LL LISTEN