june 2019

                          (i)

...I do not trust these mountains

they are war machines

things of stealth

eyes that see yet cannot be seen

and these snowy peaks

they’re just deceitful contraptions

hiding thousands of suitcases

stuffed with human souls

so why should I now trust the sun as it rises and sets

when every night it releases these hordes of orange-red bastards

who, without fail, come

and lick my hands and face

until I am sodden with their dark saliva

and now, now even the grass and wind

have been recruited

as spies and informers

with alpha-males now claiming me as their own

with priests siphoning off my sanity

and yet despite all of this

despite the clairvoyant distrust

something has touched me which itself cannot be touched

and my loss is irretrievable...

                         (ii)

...just suppose it was true

this myth of beautiful words

this last of all ultimate dramas

to whom would it matter

who has eyes that can see into eyes

the sphinx stares into the depths of itself

and the chimera has its universe of mirrors

but there has only once before been a silence like this

a fly in the sunlight wipes mankind from its legs

and suddenly, on a dune, a sheet of sand slips

so, if not beauty

what was it that pushed these boundless colours

this vanity, these myths of logic

to repeatedly drive nails into the ground

who then has eyes that can see into blindness

into this horrifying ego

life’s edges may already have begun to fray

so perhaps it is this yearning to know

who or what is waiting at the door

is it just a troubling swirl of dry leaves

or something more...

                       (iii)

...too often I have seen the fire in fire

the terror from which I am made

this burst of incandescence

these lying, treacherous atoms

delusions that have lain frozen

to my heart for centuries

and now I have become so small

so destitute of warmth

that I am unable even to pause existence

to see what it is I am

or how I have become this monstrous nothing

this primate imprisoned by eternity’s tricks

from beneath the ocean a strange smoke rises

it is the smell of treachery

of yet more delusions

bursting into life

and when the oceans catch fire

it is certain mankind has played its last card

the night ace

against which there is no call...