april 2017
(i)
...inside every skull is a brutal infinity
a gutter running through the mind
a one-and-only starry circus
that pins vast roses to the sky
so ask not what is lost or gained
when visionaries mumble into your hands
their god is our bitterness
but our loneliness is our freedom
for it is sight itself that now dictates
the terror stretched over our faces
the eye's circling blindness that spies the rose
and takes its beauty for itself
and yet here we are trying so hard to smile
at the masters of ceremony, at the goons and clowns
as they high-five our children’s heads through the air
where’s the harm in that they laugh
our god is your bitterness
and blowing kisses they cart-wheel down the gutters
and out into what remains of our brutal freedom
rose petals falling from the clouds...
(ii)
...these irate, invincible word-snakes
are now beyond control
the mad muscles in our throats
have finally taken flight
devouring history
setting fire to milk
demanding of each prepuce
that it spits frogs and bones
that each vulva swells with crucifixions
they have even called for universes
to emerge without minds
and for hearts to pump only water
yes, a wily delirium has without doubt
bitten into our wrists
and the magic of re-booting humanity
has now passed into the hands of a narcissist
a manicured glutton who devours burning milk
whose prepuce has taken flight before the world
whose heart pumps only water
whose universe is without a mind...
(iii)
...although so far I have escaped the wooden face
the eyes soiled with age
yet there is still no freedom
from the cold, cold narrative of my own irrelevance
and even though the acid rains of Venus
have thinned my blood
and the clays of Mars
have entered my soul
the peoples of the Earth
have been loved by no-one but themselves
so it must be said
the Sun should have done more
far more than merely fuel sex
day and night for four billion years
clearly it is the confidence trick of oblivion
this grotesque, special synaesthesia of the peoples of the Earth
to have everything and call it nothing
to have nothing and call it everything
an old, old narrative
where shadows merge and never yield
not even to freedom...
(iv)
...I have finished with being human
absurdity now holds me in each of its fists
and in each of mine I too hold absurdity
we two are killers
obscure, immoral predators
who roam arm-in-arm across this inbred conscience
seeking deliberate ambiguity
anything to camouflage the tightening fists
the instincts drooling as we close-in
on those who scavenge from our sad, selfish memories
the child racist
who stuffed snow into my mouth
and the mobbing crowd that knew
a little delirious butchery
was the very best life could offer
and so everywhere around me
the sunlight began to turn black with ignorance
and I became a killer of killers
a chimera betrothed to the absurd
standing arm-in-arm watching the skies darken...