november 2017

                                 (i)

...whose night portraits are these

that pass, so frictionless, through my skin

they sing in red, think in blue sepia

in colours no eyes have ever seen

so what are these inky ghosts doing here

with their indelible, paper whispers

with these stanzas that are only too ready

to anatomise the unthinkable

because at the very moment the herald’s wings

pass over the horizon

these grim pantheons always seem to disappear

down holes in the ground

and I am left staring with disbelief

at my sagging body

unable, as ever, to swallow the words

congealed in my throat

another of preterition’s old-age tricks

the frictionless ghosts

the portraits of darkness

the doorways sprinkled with blood...

                          (ii)

...the universe is an instinct

a synonym, a figment, an excuse

driven by lust and damnation

and I hate it so, so much

its pugnacious mysticism

its indestructible terror

its alluring anger

and above all its grin

its bloodless, know-all grin

and why, because all these makeshift wonders

punch and pound my heart against a wall

and I have come to love the hate and hate the love of it

me, the tired castaway standing on a nonentity

that no human words will ever describe

the geometry, I suppose, of godly ignorance

a mathematical damnation

driven by lust

by every synonym for terror

and the agony that lies beyond...

                               (iii)

...sometimes doubts slip unnoticed between my lips

force apart my teeth

then carefully place some sacrament on my tongue

instantly the words joie de vivre are engulfed

and I feel myself begin to dissolve

the terrifying macrophage has arrived

and I am slipping back

down into the bag of weird minerals

back to where all the words that once gripped my heart

are being shredded

and I watch as the splinters of my face

slowly drift back out to sea

what, then, is this fruit that no-one can eat

someone or something is tasting my soul

and I have, it seems, no right to know who or what

only to feel the censure of mere shadows

but no more, the time has now come to let every uncertainty

pass straight through my face

it is now time to join with the macrophage

and out-stare the world with my own solitary arrogance...