The Killer Wants To Know
the killer wondered
how long it took for blood to dry
he never left a crimson spatter pattern
he didn’t leave clues
there was so much about death
that he didn’t understand
like how long it took for blood to dry
did it get absorbed
would it slather the surface
and clot cake dry
become flakey then powder
be blown away in the morning breeze
could it be resurrected by rain
he knew what was released on death
the bowel bladder
abrupt shudderings
that were the price of what he did
to liberate this world
from all these unnecessary fucks
all these jerk offs
who didn’t see how precious life was
until he would suddenly confront them
in the washroom of a noisy bar
music pounding so loudly
people thought the thump on the stall door
was someone’s fun drug reaction
but most of them didn’t know
how long it took for blood to dry
not that he asked them
why worry them with more
than how good is the coke he offered
then push them into a stall
squeeze
life gone
him gone out the door
his impression around the neck
satisfying and simple
but now he had something new to learn
he had to find out
and there as only one way
to find out
how long it took for blood to dry
hello stranger
This is the last in the Killer series. You might notice the influences of CSI on this. I used to watch crime TV (then got bored with it) but found some of the language had a curiously poetic quality. An previous Killer poem used the word ‘dappled’ which was a natural spring board for me to the term ‘blood spatter.’
dirty anatomy book
Now I don’t know if this is an actual forensics term or one popularized by TV writers (like ‘perp’). I tried to make Killer’s motivation clearer & perhaps more inhuman at the same time. To kill to see blood spatter patterns or to time how long it takes for blood to dry almost makes sense as I get into this characters way of thinking. It allows these motivations to distance himself from what he is actually doing. It’s not killing, its research.
escape
Though I then slip into some of his other reasons for doing it – to teach some lesson about the importance of life which the dead can’t then use. So I flow into the illogic of a mind set in way I didn’t expect.
interesting spatter
Next I go into an actual kill in a club washroom. This is pure imagination, though it has all the elements of the opening scene in some TV crime show – the bass heavy club sounds, the luring into the bathroom for what the victim thinks is either a sexual opportunity or a chance for a line of coke. Death happens – camera pans up & up as we see that body slumped around a toilet, the killer leaving and club goers dancing into the show’s opening credits.
Performing this is fun with that tasty invite at the end that I can address to the audience.
what’s the spatter here?
Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr
