february 2017

                                   (i)

...across the table, each night, a sulphurous face

invites me to join the well-wishers

it even winks in my direction

and nods its approval

yet defiantly I clench my mind

unprepared as I am to grimace my part

this act full of hazardous intent

an acid that would doubtlessly dissolve my entire person

for how can I ever forget

that I was once born alone

fatherless, motherless

just littered, dropped on sacred ground

and left beside the road to decipher my own existence

alone with reality stuffed into my mouth

so please do not expect me to show obedience

to the stench of birth

or to any montage of well-wishing saints

who, with their sulphurous, yellow breath

inflame and then suck my body dry

and so my grimace stands

a part of my undissolved personality

I am, I suppose, the serious fugitive

the thief with hazardous intent

whose hands have, for years, been clenched in rebellion...

                        (ii)

...like dry leaves crowding the gutters

everyone knows the way to the underworld

the harsh, crimson vortex

that feeds on memory

on the ash of faces

this immense, devouring silence

that treads and marks the universe

that shows to all its impeccable hostility

to what could well be the last few spoken words

crowding the gutters

these hellish, wild, delirious psyches

being eaten by fire

as the first heavy drops of rain

smack the leaves

high above the universe

it is indeed a harsh, devouring thunder

this oppressive certainty

of only ever having been

some pointless excrement of creation

a simple error on a page

of tumultuous dreams

and all that was memorable and good

consumed by the first strike of lightning...

               (iii)

...often, all along the infinite boundary

there are these whispers of the changeling

the shoreline where rocks articulate chaos and bones

and, of course, these ever-so timely bastards

emerging upright from the surf

humans who roar with joy

because they hold behind their eyes

the seething malfeasance of a million predators

celebrities who, with perfect teeth

cheat each and every foetus of its ego

whose whispers seem to burst with immortality

with some fabulous rendition of the truth

and yet rising from the sand

come the many hands of the dead

and one very special changeling

who engraves the names of god on its faeces

all along the infinite boundary

the ocean’s brutal, grotesque choreography

the one threat that decides the fate of all

the roar behind the glass...