The Terrorist As The Letter T

                          

The Terrorist As The Letter T

#1.       I toss this into the mix from outside

            the high-voltage trammel lines.

            I wouldn’t want to be tardy, if I were you.

#2.       It’s a graven invitation to the marriage

            of Terpsichore and Trinitrotoluene,

            two distant branches of the one tree.

#3.       Tanzania or Togo will always pick up

            the tab, so don’t keep a tally,

            tally-ho, tally-ho.

#4.       Such tidings! Until now the trajectory

            of my bloodline was a tractrix,

            tomorrow it will tend towards a catenary.

#5.       (This is taboo. They are taping

            all your tangents,

            taping them off.)

#6.       ‘Time Ain’t On Your Side’,

            intone Tiresias and the Thebans.

            It’s topped the charts for ages.

#7.       Tranquility

            is armed

            to the teeth.

#8.       If your troops are T-cells

            in the immune system of the body politic,

            I’m reverse transcriptase.

#9.       Wedding bells: I say

            tintinabulation, you say tocsin.

            Here comes trouble, time for toil.

#10.    I toss up a theme

            and topple your towers. Tada!

            I’m ten public enemies in one.

#11.    Tragedy! Thunderbolt!

            Titanic throes!

            Tumult! Tyburn trees!

#12.    If your tropes are T-cells

            in the constitution

            I’m reverse transcriptase.

#13.    My tell-tale traits are on the tube.

            Not to worry, hard to tell: Toulouse-Lautrec’s

            mugshots touched up my good side.

#14.    I leap in my Chevy Tahoe

            with my tommy-guns and my tra-la-la,

            take the low road towards Tiajuana.

#15.    My tracks and traces

            are everywhere,

            top-notch disguises:

#16.    a topiarist

            of erotic tableaux

            in the tawny privets;

#17.    a translator

            of Tibetan mantras

            into Telugu;

#18.    a tippler

            of fine teas

            in tenebrous tasting rooms.

#19.    Township

            to trembling township.

            Tragedy! Tyburn trees!

#20.    All night the tom-toms thump

            in Terminus Alley, east L.A.

            Tlingit Indians are chanting

#21.    ‘All the way

            all the way

            all the way with Tokay’.

#22.    The silent c in Tucson

            is a trap in the tarmac,

            a shibboleth.

#23.    /tu:ks∂n/

            means death,

            amigos.

#24.    Time is not on my side.

            Who’s that tearing down my door?

            The tetrarchs of trouble.

#25.    Tie, truss, torture,

            trick, twist, turnscrew,

            torque, test, truncheon.

#26.    “Take a vacation from temporality;

            trail the Templars through

            the tropics of televised fabliaux”.                          (Good Cop)

#27.    “A Tazer is a sex toy

            for exhibitionists.

            Je t’adore, ma tazer”.                                           (Bad Cop)

#28.    If your traps are T-cells

            in our tête-à-têtes

            I’m reverse transcriptase.

#29.    Tie, torque, Tonton Macoute,

            Thus can one trust

            the testimony of tarantulas.

#30.    Where was I

            when the first tower tottered?

            I was babbling about tragedy in Timbuktu.

#31.    Truss, turnkey, truncheon,

            tunful of turds

            and all the time in the world.

#32.    On live TV

            tumult and tribute

            under the Ty, under the burn, under the Tyburn tree.

#33.    I’m not theatrical,

            I’m not weeping,

            it’s the gas, the teargas.

©  Ger Killeen