april 2016
(i)
...one night an entire planet
tumbled its mass through my head
trashing, as it went, my weightless blood
angels ran across my face
tearing themselves to pieces
one swallowed its own hands
another ran over
and dropped an embryo into my mouth
I was, it seemed, at the centre of some maligned creation
an organelle, a codon, a virus
primed to track the human heart
to colonise the imagination
with yet another new, epic paradise
evil in high-definition
then no-one, I suppose, could miss
these angels disintegrating
pixel by pixel
the last moments of solitude
leaving my weightless body
the brave unity of reason
suddenly falling apart
expiring beneath the blinding smoke...
(ii)
...I write for no-one but the lonely eye
the quiet, lawless gremlin beneath my face
for only he knows of the frail palimpsest
the inky skin of the mastermind
my parchment self
a farce, an agony
announcing the x and the y of life
these dim, flat halleluiahs
this mind that rises only when it sleeps
a nagging, physical melancholy
that is never at rest
that is always erupting
always trying to trawl my bones
for yet more irrepressible clarity
the one, indivisible agony
the explosive stealth of the mastermind
my inky farce
a drama reaching out to test
the x and the y
that rise and rise and never rest
this delirious understanding that seems to come alive
the very moment it dies...
(iii)
...only fire should give birth to words
for only with words can there be the birth of fire
of children ablaze with the immensity of themselves
untamed, wilful, irreverent
their unread verses littering the cosmos
a world tempting inspiration
inspiration tempting the world
a lure to again re-write creation
with a knife that cuts as it unites
left with right, black with white
this erudite, reckless inferno
resonating with the insights of lunatics
those ivory-eyed princes
left masturbating outside in the unlit streets
their unread hearts littering the cosmos
a fire that quenches fire
and the irreverent generations continue to sing
untamed by their immensity
a song sung in silence
with words unable to be words...
(iv)
...every day there is – and always has been – this fight
this fixed, cold appointment
waiting at the foot of my bed
an unconscious, iron cauldron
that pretends to breathe
music and sunlight
the blue fingers closing around my ankles
ready at any moment
to pull my implacable mind
down across the sheets
deep into the waving arms
a sleep that bites itself in the mirror
a lens which quietly dwarfs the universe
the unconscious iron pretending to breathe
birdsong and sonnets
and the erotic certainty of death
the insufficient truth of my own reflection
in the abyss behind the mirror
in the mirror behind the abyss...
(v)
...we have always powered the Sun’s naivety
straightened its path
turned ice into innocence
and picked its atoms from our eyes
and yet we are still not sure what we are
men threaded along a wire
our smiles unravelling time
our blue teeth gleaming with data
this proud, new hunger to beatify autocracy
the online gestapo
recycling loyalty and torture
and even though we are still not sure
we double-click
just to ejaculate into strangers
innocence into ice
ice into innocence
this monstrous thirst for precision
another digital vacuum
the sunlight’s surgical path
blurring even more the outlines
of this, our last, imperfect mystery...