february 2018
...every day behind the ha-ha mask it is the same
and every night I have no choice
but to kiss the one-eyed oracle
my tormentor and kinsman
my traitor who gazes with contemptuous relish
on all that I have been
the child who still scratches the ground
in search of love
who even now snatches at the shadows
for feelings that are clean
and so I have no choice
but to draw my tormentor’s breasts up between my lips
the hope, the ascent, the tenderness
covered with make-believe
with the ethos of the infinite child
the traitor within the ground
my body’s clean treachery
behind the mask, behind the kiss
those feelings caught in the earth’s shadow
the love that has no choice...
(ii)
...look, the ritual vice versa
has finally won
it is clearly a disturbing gift
contrary and courageous
to have spat out
the clockwise mind
and to have had the disfigured past
pulled from our spine
its myriads of glittering astrocytes
falling to the floor
over-flowing into rooms
filled with animated, gibbering tongues
it is exactly the courage needed
to dissect the last ever paradise
as death gazes out at space
and space gazes back at death
a final summit is reached
and these two curious siblings stand
as they have always stood, whispering
like scheming lovers
and neither the one nor the other
will ever be the first to relent...