october 2021

                    (i)

...listen to their voices

the exterminating angels

listen as they replace

as they exchange

one stunning darkness with another

for theirs is the language of wings

of human fat

of soap

of monolithic narratives

their voices unable to be voices

their purple, black wings beating the air

sweeping away the ash

these heaps of severed tongues

these promises of some sterile transcendence

all lies and more lies among so many

that pass like wounds

through one face to the next

these angels exchanging monoliths

snacking on what’s left of prophecy

wiping from their mouths the remains of justice...

                             (ii)

...if all the mirrors of the earth are now in pieces 

what is there left to shatter but ourselves

our glass, tulip hearts

our crystalline eyes

have they not shaped the centre of every thought

coated every seed with vows

with instantaneous wisdom 

which assumed that it, and it alone

was in control of nothingness

whereas it is exactly this

which has always been in control of wisdom 

aligning one word together with the next

of how we came to be 

this smithereen species

this cardiac species 

always negotiating with mirrors

with pits of frozen blood

what more then is there left to say

when everywhere 

is at the centre of every word...

                          (iii)

...we are the stones of empires yet to be

the terror of sonnets not yet written

we are these bags of terminated hearts

spilling onto the streets

extracting one-by-one 

the tiny, crimson teeth

this entrance to a hell that never stops 

this vivacious pull of gravity

its morals lurking between the lines 

these beads, these necklaces

strewn at the poet’s feet

this celebration of art

as some outright exposure to death

an accolade no-one can even recognise

ineffaceable, eager 

such bags of stones

such hearts as these 

left crawling over the poet’s feet

spilling out onto the streets 

this transfiguration of freedom into guilt...