Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Annex Us
Monday, 9 June 2025
I Taught You To Punch
I taught you once to punch
Perhaps not hard enough,
I taught you to defend yourself,
I taught you to be tough,
I taught you to lash out
But I taught you other stuff,
And in the end, my little friend,
You punched me in the guts,
A rod for my own back,
A baby-dividing sword,
An offering to the Lord of lack
(Was all I could afford)
Just enough hanging slack,
To adorn my neck with chord,
All these things I made myself to crack
The vessel's treasure horde
And from the crack it poured.
I guess I should be grateful,
I guess I need to wait
I guess I'll give up hateful
Stand and watch for you, from the gardener's gate,
But though I live, for now,
This is a living death,
And the punch I caught,
Taught you to throw,
Separates us till my last breath
I made my bed on this canvas.
Friday, 6 June 2025
Time to Time
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
Spiral
The sirens screech announces
The spiral staircase down from heaven
Jacobs Twisted Ladder
The skies shed themselves
Of their carrion angels
Falling to earth
Feasting on flesh
They murder the burden
They bid with their beaks
Like rapturous raptors,
The meat from the marrow
They unclothe the overdressed of their finery and furs
And bring home truth and death
Bring them down from heaven,
Death descends down the staircase,
Glamorous as a gilded girl at the gala,
Buoyed up by the whirl of wings
Brings by it
A Carcass cleaned
Leaving
Only the thin truth
of thin air
As flesh breaks down
A soul ascends
And only the truth of bones
Remains
Loose-fit Lucifer
The ice bergs rattle And the glasses chink, And the party's swinging And I'm on the brink, All along, in the old cold throng, Bangin...
-
This master-work of yours, This magnum opus, This poiema, Is sat in his underpants In a neglected and untidy flat, Typing on a laptop he bou...
-
As children we learn Though the principle pain is palpable, Though the salt trails that mark our cheeks, long after the streams have dried, ...
-
The sirens screech announces The spiral staircase down from heaven Jacobs Twisted Ladder The skies shed themselves Of their carrion angels F...