I remember now I remained patient

in the last of the trenches,

my face paralysed,

my fingers frozen on the verge

of that isolated trigger,

but I was always thinking of you,

you were the whore in my head

while the enemy ahead

just wanted me and my comrades dead:

A spoilt bastard I used to be

and no-one intended to impersonate me,

I was the sound of every known human rage,

the fury behind every posh curtain,

all the weight of our souls locked inside an empty cage:

We called it “The Tin Noses Shop”,

mere improvisation to compensate us,

to give us a face already lost.

Masks for facial disfigurement

beyond any age of consent,

no gratitude, no smiles, just more smoke

coming from anyone else’s cigarettes.

No, it was not.

Europe wasn’t our playground anymore,

so, fuck civilization, mates,

and no matter how many flowers

this luminous hospital room may contain,

I just need my left eye back

and a couple of mirrors

to help me shave my pains away behind this mask.

No, Miss Anna Coleman, no,

my plasticine life does not begin here and now

because there is no home for me to go

and there will never be;

I am no pacifist tool for future

plastic surgeries, Madam,

for I have chosen, from now on,

to hide my bones in that opera house

and live the rest of my life

as a fucking celebrity phantom.

 

Poem by Jose Yebra

Photos by Malin Ellisdotter (c)