Literary Pixie Press

By Matt Magee

The King’s sumptuous robe lay on the floor 
Paved with stones of gold, with his sweaty cheeks 
Pressed against the filigreed porcelain throne 
Inlaid with jewels and dancing arabesque angels. 
He itched his breakfast-crusted beard, and sneezed, 
And a lump of steamy turd dropped out from his arse. 
The plop against the water turned the buzz 
Of the tiny fly circling in his orbit 
Into a sort of school-girl snigger, he thought, 
And he waved his regal, ring-bejewelled hand 
At the fly to shoo it. But the same hand 
That, with a swing, could drop a man to his death; 
The hand that’d snapped so many hundreds of necks, 
And had so many more hundreds of necks to snap 
Without even touching them; the same god-like hand 
That everyone rushed to kiss in fearful flattery— 
That hand couldn’t scare the fly off. 
Nor had it a word for him or he for it: 
It hadn’t come for royal favour, gold, or to supplant him, 
It only came for shit.

This piece is from The Feminist Toilet #1. To go back and read more, click here.