may 2016

                                                   (i)

...yes, let us reach the sleep of our delusions

let’s empower the crucifying circus

and lower our heads

to the sanctity of cancer

maybe even have owls nesting in our shoes

then perhaps, we can insist

on the divinity of coloured balloons

on the right of women

to drink their menstrual blood

and spit sanity into the dust at men’s feet

and, as a symbol of our devotion

let’s also insist

that a line of pale, crimson tumours

be laid out end-to-end

to show-case the beneficence of pain

and the promiscuous torment of an everlasting life

even though, of course, we are merely

the embodied fantasy of the rocks

the earth’s tears

who, nonetheless, have been left

wiping eternity from our eyes

we, whose children one day

will hang by their feet

from the world’s boulevards and bridges

someone’s borrowed piety

carved across their faces

a strange, fractured hieroglyph

overwhelming the breeze...

                              (ii)

...I love the vicious slide of evolution

the timeless, ruthless high-wire

that twists my DNA

into this murderous balancing act

where every idea, every thought

is driven by the sun’s lust

and so, just like every other rodent

I sit tucked into my special niche

eating the wings of flies

licking my scabs

a creature trailing its imperfections

high across the ground

waiting, however

for sex to slide into my body

and fill my brief universe with purpose

then am I free to bite the rising sentinel

the one who repeatedly butts his ruthless symmetry

up against my heart

an explosion of nerves out on the wire

the one place where love’s tension must always snap

the one reason my DNA turns vicious

and blinds the sun from the sky...

                         (iii)

...every ballad is a multitude of teeth

an addiction splintering reality

into a thousand destinations

each vying for kingship

each primed for distraction

the once-in-a-lifetime brouhaha

of search engines sewn neatly into the skull

happiness disbarred

punched in the throat

this light, this unstoppable light

another collision with darkness

a mirth that pushes aside

the fatal immensity of death

the ballads splitting open

words, destinations, skulls

all fanning outwards

the unstoppable happiness

of finally dismembering god...

                                         (iv)

...was there ever such a belligerent sky as this

with these crass, slap-stick warriors

who high-five destiny

and wave their lonely erections

high on every corner

their fixed, viagra eyes

dragging women as meat into their mouths

the wide arena of our enlightenment

a botox reality

bar-coded, downloaded

a tactical shroud

that sweeps across the ecstatic world

the passion for overwhelming might

the default movie

dragged as meat into our eyes

the sales rep kissing his bullets

and begging passers-by to reach out

and touch his lethal flesh

the slap-stick destiny of our enlightenment

a tactical passion

a frigid, triumphant shroud

that drags its freezing ecstasy through the world...