SHOCKing Sonnets: The Deranged Dean in PIECES

Resident poet Nigel Parkin digs into the mind of the deranged Dean in 1982’s PIECES for this SHOCKing series of sonnets!

Summer of ‘42

I knew perfect women come in pieces

Even as a boy. My jigsaw showed me –

This girl was a miraculous puzzle

From a future time, a scattered promise

Of glossy hair and model breasts, guiding

My eager hands as I assembled her,

Revealing, stroking, loving, needing her.

And when mother discovered us, my rage

Was greater than hers; she called me dirty,

Threatened to kill me, but I took an axe

To her dull brain! Silenced, separated,

She was now the mother I needed, her

Limbs a new toy, her blood enhancing the

Beauty of my jigsaw girl – my true joy!

Forty Years Later – The First Victim

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Ha! You are a vision from a sonnet!

I’m almost sorry to disturb your peace

But all things must be broken. This scene of

Sunlight and flowers would look better in

Pieces, with great livid splashes of blood!

Somewhere I’m sure I can hear shattering

Of glass, sharp shards of memory slicing

My mind – my mother’s bitter, hateful cries.

I start up the saw, step into the sun.

With an easy sweep I take what I need.

The spring that erupts from your neck, mocking

Life, is a wonderful, rapturous sight!

I’m in ecstasy. My work has begun.

The Masterpiece

The tennis player was a dream to watch.

She played the game in her own special way

But really it wasn’t her skill that held

My gaze – it was her legs! I needed them!

She came close, in effect, to my jigsaw

Girl – I could have stared at her for ever.

Cowering in the cubicle, screaming

As my saw carved a piece out of the door,

Framing her, a picture of fear, panic

Staining her thighs, she was my masterpiece.

Oh, she was so well received! Mary’s cries

Of shock and rage recalled my mother, years

Before. The name I’d heard my father called

Now honoured me! ‘Bastard! Baastaard! Bastaaaard!’