october 2022

                          (i)

…a knife blade suddenly begins to pour with milk

a tree exsanguinates

and one mind encodes another

saying, we are here to love you

never mind that pile of tiny bones and herbs

beneath the threshold

we are only here to serve you 

thus spoke the quanta, the C plus-plus

the metadata and the pythons 

but they continued, saying

high in that tree hangs a basket

of disembodied erections

climb and take your pick

immolation by fire awaits

so thus do the superlatives of intelligence

surpass even themselves

encoding vulvas

encoding witches

beneath the threshold

this data's bold concupiscence

repeating, we are here to love only you

please, come and take your pick…

                        (ii)

…there is now no doubt

that this is the architecture of human fire

these mindsets, which, in the name of peace 

raise glasses of champagne

and gleefully eat the flesh

torn from children’s faces

and which, again in the name of peace 

punch the air at the sheer comedy of it all

more caviar anyone 

it’s just a harmless joke after all

but nonetheless a really brilliant ploy 

to use death as an aphrodisiac

and this year, the pȃté de foie gras 

has been exceptional

yes, that frail, cruel substance of human souls 

pieces of brain

stuck to the ceiling and walls 

that deathly, erotic ploy

a substance beyond the reach of any god

an odyssey into silence…

                        (iii)

…this time, birth came with its mark

an omen hidden beneath the tongue

it said, these feelings have no language

no canvas, no stone or sound

they are word-shapes with no golden thread

no ink that has ever or will ever dry

just tracks in the snow

intuitions left behind

by some unreachable star

that once toyed with armageddon

that mark beneath the tongue

a sonnet in purple blood

a shockwave that once tried to articulate

to weaponise some immediate truth

but was instead left with these teeth

rising from the ice

this glacier moving down through the mouth

as these feelings melt away

as this womb of golden threads 

breaks open, saying nothing…

                      (iv)

…once and once only they came 

striding the pristine earth

the ghost-like ephemera 

holding eternity in their fists

alive for no reason 

yet still serene, still promiscuous

but once gone 

then nevermore

and although this strange, sexual dust

this celestial appetite

pushes words across 

from one side of the universe to the other

nonetheless this ephemeral life 

of just one only second

on just this one only world

will pass

will nevermore be

what it truly was

a candy floss genius 

alive for no other reason

than to push words into the abyss…