Minimalist Gossip Magazine Cover (49).pdf (23) - Flipbook - Page 9
Davros
He dreams of kicking a ball across the galaxy,
or setting out from the mother ship to explore
planets, stars, galaxies and dark matter,
or conquering the playground with invisible death rays.
He has ambitions
in the inaugural
scoring the goal
the ball slotted
to play for Skaro
interplanetary Champions League,
that will bring home the cup,
between two rolled up jumpers.
He carefully combs his hair, waiting to meet
ambassadors from a world of godlike women
with whom he can mate and produce the master race
that will grow, learn to kill, destroy his enemies and triumph.
But now the weight of light years hangs heavy
on his racked and tortured body, while his brain,
like a budding creature in a broken shell,
evolves, imagines, calculates and thrives.
His aching frame, lacking the genetic modification
to perpetuate swift movements and brisk energy,
no longer responds to the impossible desires
of a mind that has expanded but not aged.
For Davros can solve the crossword in eleven minutes
and can translate the Iliad into iambic pentameters,
and recites the names of galaxies, while each movement
ends with a chair’s jolt and a solid wall.
He wakes each morning from his dreams of youth
longing for childhood, only for brute pain
to sear through his muscles like a Dalek’s flame:
incurable, now even the Doctor is an adversary.
Little wonder, then, that such a vast intelligence
should seek to destroy everything that it envies:
he sees in his children only his own decay
and turns his thoughts to the last unconquered foe.
Jeff Gallagher
2
