december 2016
(i)
...is it not right to test
the strength of every halleluiah
to wonder wherefore and why
these millimetres of naked jelly
this incessant cortex
have gone and inseminated the sun
seen its grave
and moved on to touch greater suns
why then does this vast, gloomy charm
still burn in my throat
twist my back
and thread its wherefore-dreams through my eyes
it is Saturn again, yelling at me
conjuring his benign infernos
we, he says
we are the shadows of comets
fragments of children chasing life
seedlings destined to spice
the one last sexual narrative
the last, last supper
a breathless farewell to all halleluiahs...
(ii)
...last night the deep earth ceased to spin
and this morning the sun did not rise
instead the horizon itself
buckled and threw high over our heads
a glowing, limitless canopy of faces
each and every one of which
beamed treachery
it was a grim, unforgettable mosaic
pieced together with the icy love of the narcissist
no wonder the earth had stopped spinning
there was, it seemed to say, no time left
for solidarity with so many useless strangers
best to let one half of the unseen world
boil away into space
for why should human love even pretend to exist
in this nondescript corner of nowhere
it is a strange treasure
as meaningless as it is meaningful
a beacon, an urge to kiss the darkness around us
to expiate the darkness within
love, the only signature of humankind
the only edict ever written
to demand the sun keeps on rising...
(iii)
...the sound of the rain falls through my mind
and immediately I am in chains
manacled once again to this old, filthy leviathan
this angel, this tormenting methuselah
who squats down before me
and opens her little bag of mirrors
swallows dog faeces
and waits for inspiration
immediately I panic
because although my heart
wants avidly to cut into the infinite
when I try to speak
my mouth becomes the stinking
leechy mouth before me
and my ears begin to leak
fat, greasy jingles
desperately I throw the mirrors into disarray
and shun the faeces
but the rain defiantly squats in my head
refusing to let go of its immortality
I am therefore bound
by the crime of too much and too little
fragmented insight
a torment like no other
my words are my chains
and this imprisonment is my freedom...
(iv)
...the beginning of prejudice starts in a mirror
the one and only place
the future can stare back at us
as the needle draws blood from the arm
the truth’s fatal certainty
that the bite of passion is finally over
that the hard, forbidding logic of eternity has arrived
to oil our dry sex
our love overrun
by the slow, strong bitterness of age
the needle now draining prejudice from the heart
spilling yet another million years across the floor
the civilised fascism of simply doing nothing
because the sun is out
and could go viral at any moment
another of truth’s fatal certainties
that even if fraternity is over
logic must in heaven as it must on earth
reign supreme
before the mirror finally slips from reach...
(v)
...today, as everyday, I will remain the black sun
the squalid outlier that rises
trying to filter my life from the universe
to disentangle my soul’s meticulous code
from all the tricks and creeds and junk distractions
that rhyme death with immunity
but to reach any semblance of myself
I first must speak in tongues
to the solitude around me
the fly struggling in a web
the skin peeling from my feet
the jets bonded to the sky
these are all conspiracies
patterns in the nameless, black dust
that cloaks the universe with zeros
for although I have loved the man in woman
and the woman in man
I have loved my own mystery far more
the squalid sun
the web bonded to the sky
my solitude
always struggling
to disentangle dust from dust...
(vi)
...suppose it needed only strength
could I really stop the wind’s fantasies
the chiming shadows
and the colours feeding on my eyes
it is always too late to pause a life
especially when there are thousands of images of yourself
rising from a cliff
and the free air simply cannot hold nor see
the creative pain
that accelerates you upwards
crushing and harvesting your body
a mix of merciless harmonies
pressed hard against your throat
and yet when all these spectres take my hand
and slide their stylus between my fingers
I know there is nothing more
no premeditated ecstasy behind this wilderness
which bears my name
just the nightmares feeding in the shade
nervously waiting for their turn
to take off into the wind...