may 2017

                              (i)

...and so now that I have felt the macabre tongue

lick the salt from my thighs

and drop its dark, milky spit into my ears

what then must become of this one-flesh feeling

that subsumes this life into this death

for I have never truly known the difference

between these two summits of the universe

just the tightness of a knot, the shell of a mind

that allows this fascist immensity

to come and dig its nails into my neck

and place in every doorway a raw-headed Gorgon

forcing me to turn back into myself

where there is nothing but this spit screaming in my ears

and the earth repeatedly throwing itself through space

tunnelling on deeper into this deceitful epic

a feeling that, as ever, strips the skin from my heart

and forces me to glare into the Gorgon’s face

and demand it leaves the way clear

my one-flesh tightening like a knot

my mind hurling itself at immensity’s throat...

                                        (ii)

...like the man who eats glass

and slips unnoticed into the capillaries of our eyes

the real vanishing trick must surely be the poisoning of time

the terror, the apparition thrown at our feet

the self-embracing, sad zero

with its myths and oceans hissing over our heads

again it is the poisoning man

the one who eats glass

the one who rises each day

merely to stab the sunlight

and carve his words for worship into the floor

for only he knows just how restless our hatred is

how the visions thrown at our feet

are purposely littered with bereavement

with thousands upon thousands of melting candles

that hiss behind our eyes

the unmistakeable, sad ocean

that only he knows how to use

and so he eats his fill

and vanishes into our blood...