XXVIII – A Sapphire in the Mud

Inscribed Mattress, Ashley Road, St Pauls, Bristol

Behold the “nothing mattress anymore”
mattress—king-sized, warped, stained, propped up against
damp brick. Beguiling like an unlocked door,
the truth thus written is, without pretence:
this mattress, having lost its function must
no longer as something mattress exist.
Instead, a canvas for a wit’s mot juste,
the mattress bears the koanistic gist
of its own annihilation. Just this once,
one countenances some conceptual art
as something not shat out by blue-haired cunts
with attitude who hold themselves apart.
This thy Upanishad, thy Torah, Tao.
Away to the recycling centre now.

The author explains: “Somebody wrote “nothing mattress anymore” on a mattress which had been left propped up against a wall in the street. I thought this was hilarious, and wrote a sonnet about it.”