september 2022

                        (i)

…are you really still here among us

swilling out your mouth with rat’s blood

scrolling the apps

and swallowing children

you, with your icy semen

and your obscene, blue nipples

are you really still reading entrails

for links that conspire

for omens that twist the colon

and those acolytes who deceive

whose souls are made of clay

this life’s inaudible scream

yes, they are still here

but now as clairvoyant bulls

fondling their bitcoins

here amongst us

still kissing haemorrhoids

rolling dice and cutting veins

this e-paradise

this insanity made of clay…

                      (ii)

…and yet the puzzle still remains

these lyrics, these births that no-one can hear

these shadows on the other side of language

reflections that fade to infinity

taunting existence

with multitudes of anemones

littering the air

this gorgeous, unbroken soul of the sky

far behind the eyes

the dark, black sapphires

always on the verge of light

a shadow-play that lives

far beyond the reach of perception

thus do the windflowers desecrate

taunting the universe

with their esoteric madness

a myth no eye can see

a beauty none can break

thus always the mystery wins

this nativity just out of reach…

                        (iii)

…today, the solar winds spin through my body 

wrapping me in some unearthly tiredness

a monumental fatigue 

that kneels and begs the darkness for rest

me and my thousands of years 

without sleep

me and my homeless atoms 

with no reason to exist

for when I die, is it not obvious 

the cosmos too must die

that the winds will be full of seed 

yet have no earth to fall on

and although the rocks listen 

and the sun listens

mortality will remain in my blood 

spinning its exhausting script

this unearthly weight 

that kneels and begs for rest

me and my thousand obsessions

me and my airborne seeds…

                       (iv)

…how many children do we have left

how many trees

there are, of course, skies and seas

maybe even a handful of tomorrows

but every last grain of time

has now vanished

into the unconscionable enormity

of what we have done

life has slipped through our hands

a delphic soul

a paper soul

children blown out to sea like rags

how many do you think we have left

how many trees

these glowing winds

these stinking beaches

stepping over handfuls of so many rags

memories falling apart in the waves

this paper soul

this delphic soul

calling the ocean to come

and seize this hopeless enormity of our tomorrow…

                  (v)

…naked once again, they come 

whipping their thighs with birches

swimming through pools of semen 

the neo-necromancers bonded to iron

to those bullets 

that always seem to circle the bigoted mind

that place of dark man-hunger 

that talks with graves, with ashes

such monologues as these 

straining existence

this oh so-stubborn dream 

this insatiable hypnosis

for all that is heinous

for all that is evil

swimming through pools of omnipotence

the semen’s deep and dreamy blood

a call to arms

to those dark bullets

circling the mind

that place of hungry monologues…