POETRY
POETRY
Nights never consider
How mornings feel.
They twist and turn,
The mirror blurs,
And clears,
Becomes almost too clear,
Showing
Hole-punched paper
The kitchen sink filled with plates of scraped cottage cheese
Itchy braille – one dot for A.
In the distance,
Somewhere behind the mirror, or in front of it,
There is a sound,
A clear echo.
The echo screams to get away
To run for the lush green hills
Or city streets,
Where lights or wildflowers will drown
It’s hallucinations of reality
In dreams of futuristic, primitive desire.
Heaven’s on fire.
Paper holes ripped clean through,
Blood seeping in the wounds,
Disintegrating the white tree to flakes of ruby ash.
Cheese remnants licked clean and spat on the mirror.
Braille read by the perceptive, with English just above.
A false mirage.
A dangerous image.
A wondrous night of horror and deception.
Pain seeping through
The mirror into me.
Me the night calls.
Me the day dreads.
For he must deal with the reflective shards of night.
Perhaps I should sleep it all away,
Draw the curtains closed and blow out the light.
Licence picture of suicide
Induced another fit of cries.
I feared the tears streaking my work
The hours of contemplation
The wasted time blending it through
Within myself. Within my skin.
The face is natural distortion.
A Picasso straight from the womb.
Surrounded by bird nests it is,
Striped with sad salt remnants it is.
Upper lip disintegrated
In the acid mouth, the melancholy.
The eyes are there, yet they’re vacant.
A Modigliani save sculpt.
It is foreign, out of my grasp,
Beauty, that is. Unrelenting.
It is unrelenting, on my
Soul. The constant yearning, the whines.
Silent, they are, though decadent.
Absolute and complete is pain.
I’ve perfected the craft of it.
Experience is too distant
And I’m chided for my lacking,
My observing, my whispering.
I’m chided time and time again,
I’m seldom consoled. I’m mystic.
I’m the sole benefactor to
The aid of my pain’s creation,
My imperfections, presumptions.
It is all me. I am to blame.
Solely me. Only me. All me.
Solitude and decrepitude
Of the self. To the self. For self’s
Sake. The picture stays behind tech.
Hidden from me, from them, from all.
Poisonous, dangerous, is that
Picture of me. It’s the only one.
Why would I reproduce my face?
It’s not essential. The rose falls
Into my lips, mouth, stem and all.
Thorns prick my throat, I cannot speak.
I haven’t the will, the need, the
Ability. Save me from this
Purgatory. Deliver me
From this hell. Send me down, down, down.
I need to go down, to escape
Myself and their prying pupils.
They aren’t really staring, I’m just
So far from being saved. Pointless.
There is nothing I can do.
As I sit here stagnant;
Unmoving; unchanging.
The world shifts,
And I want things,
But they are out of my view.
There is nothing I can do.
I am tired and my throat is swollen
And I can’t speak
And I bulge in all directions.
All I want is to be small.
Become darker, darker, blue.
For, there is nothing I can do.
I am what I am.
And that isn’t good enough.
It used to be – that time is now gone.
All that is left is a block of chalk;
Dusty, no interest, useless.
Unless,
You want to graze me sharply across the pavement
And make a fine, clean line
That will wash away in the rain,
Drip down into the gutter.
Forgotten, damp dust.
You see, there is nothing I can do.
And they haven’t got a clue,
If only they knew.
They think it’s fine, to glue
The pieces together; jagged, skewed.
To make a queue of things to do.
That will make it better. Make it due.
But it’s me we’re talking about, and I’m through.
There’s nothing left. No one to go to.
No where to debut,
It’s all the same. Stagnant. Renewed.
Do you understand? There’s nothing I can do.
I am chemical
Putrid puss
Archaic blood splattered pages.
There’s a hill between my nose and right eye.
There’s a bug inside that’s clawing to escape.
My tongue is rotten meat
It tastes like an abandoned fridge left outside on a hot summer’s night.
Rotten and rotting
Moulded and decaying
Green fur spots instead of taste buds
Infested by maggots
That replace my teeth
And penetrate my eyes and nostrils
The bug finally breaks free
Red everywhere
Dead skin in the sink
Fresh skin on the mirror
It devours the maggots
Growing larger by the minute
Then devours me
The rank green rotten being that I am.
Bugs tend to like that.
Solitude, sanctitude
Creamy pearl beading.
The virgin glistens
On a golden pendant
That adorns my rose breast.
Milky, veiny neck
Scratched with angry markings
Crimson tiger stripes.
Nailed with a black lining
Gorish, bloodlust living
Sun seeping through the
Cracking plaster roof.
Vermillion heaven.
Lust petals flutter in
Place of plume angel wings.
She calls to me from
My breast and above.
Smile of saccharine song.
She calls to me with
Melodies of terror.
Her tarnishing silver
Hair that turns bronze in
The flaming red sun
Of her false home in
Prescient wallowing,
Bruising paradise.
Snow angels in summer
Staining the warmth blue
With their gummy mouths
And swollen omen arms.
Stay with me, I convey,
Live in my locket
Forever honoured,
Hair eternally brown,
Where the fields remain blue –
Blue, and the sky is
Black – inked by your child’s
Father’s hand with silky
Pigments he gathered
From the underworld.
Your world is bleeding,
Alongside my own.
The pendant turns copper
In my polluted grasp.
The ocean beads unclasp.
The virgin falls from my
Breast to the murky ground.
Porcelain cracked, broken,
Gone – gone away from me –
Doll disembodied.
Arms, legs, fleshy paint
Coat my blistered fingers.
Hellfire! Where to from here?
The velvet robe is
Transparent – my body.
My body, my body is
A gleaming silver screen.
Popped corn buttered, crunched,
Drinks swirled, slushed and downed –
A German silent snuff.
I have the same fate as
You, Virgin. Innocent
Nymphet of archaic land.
Synthetic truths – fake.
Beyond fake in your
Composition. I
Apologise for the
Interference. I just
Wanted to honour you –
The virgin you are claimed
To be. You’re beyond fake.
I’m an amalgam
Of your lies. Young and
Innocent and ruthless
And hideous – you
Are the most corrupt.
Womanhood has you to
Blame. We have been doomed
Since you graced the earth
Now you come and complain
To me. Me of all the
Others. Your paradise
Will not save you now.
Come, come down – possess
The doll you terrorise.
Take your place in the dirt,
Make love with demons that
Visit at midnight.
It’s all in good fun –
You’ll later love it,
Accept it. Embrace it.
Once it’s over and you’re
Tarnishing cycle has
Been once too many done,
You will escape your
Vermillion heaven
And go down – down where it’s
Hot. Where the flames engulf
Where your virginity
Will be taken by rape.
Rape everyday. For
Eternity. You will
Be raped forever
In your newfound lost
Paradise of sulphur
And you will enjoy it.
All of it – everyday.
Day being one stream
Of starless black chasms.
Pleasure forever.
You do not see.
You think you see,
But how could you
When I’m under a cloud,
Dark and brooding,
Being stabbed by knives
Of rain?
You do not see.
How could you see?
I’m a vessel
For your words
And spit.
A hole for the grave
Of your heart.
You dug the hole,
You must have –
For it wasn’t me.
Maybe it was he
That left me vacant
At the ripe old age of three.
Abandoned, flee,
Bouncing on a ghost’s knee.
Grow little flower, be merry.
Glee, glee, glee –
You thought of me.
Big monkey ears
That he pulled out of me,
Licked out of me.
Breath hot and black,
Choking on charcoal,
Barbeque meat black.
You never did cook,
You never did much
Of anything,
But you did leave.
I did not miss you,
No, not once.
Not until I thought I had to.
I was born twenty-two,
I thought I should remind you.
Your Mrs hates you – the
Unaware, narcissistic bastard
That you are,
That you’ve always been.
I’ve seen
The way your parents treat you.
I’ve heard
Of how they used to,
And I’m sorry.
But you never had the voice
To say it yourself
To anyone else.
I don’t think you have a voice or brain –
It is vacant in your mind.
Maybe that's why you didn’t care
When you left me behind.
Perhaps that is why I’m now
Vacant too.
I’m yours, it’s true.
She doesn’t like that I’m like you,
She’s afraid I’ll become you.
I am afraid too –
Of being useless and a brute.
In the way, in your way,
Like an old black shoe
That you kick aside
And forget about,
Like when you would kick the doors in
And leave gaping holes in them
That she plastered, not you.
Why is it that you leave holes
Everywhere you go?
A moth, a termite, a maggot,
Eating away at anything
You could gnaw your cigarette teeth into.
Your spirit saliva,
Your calloused hands twitching
From days of sitting and spitting
And laughing at everything in front of you.
A demon from the underground
Tormenting me from above, across, around.
I hate that I think of you
When you don’t think of me at all.
Your mother has to remind you to call me for my birthday –
Twenty-two, remember?
But I don’t answer,
No, not ever.
You don’t want me to.
Maybe I should,
Then what would you do?
Maybe I should come there,
Then what would you do?
Maybe I should say I love you,
What would you do –
Stick your stained tongue in my ear?
Mark my arms red?
Cough on my cheek,
Repeat repeat repeat
Your wasted intelligible words
Till I choke on my own breath
And die from the impact
Of jumping from
The balcony
Down onto the patio –
Bushes, a glass pyramid
That I will stick in to.
Impaled, dead.
Dead with you forever.
My other half,
So you can suffer just as me.
She still doesn’t see,
I’ve got a new agenda
I’ll latch onto you – leech you –
You’ll never get rid of me.
I ache so deeply
I am completely consumed by ache.
No rest, not ever;
From the yearning, pleading, watching –
I’m inconsolable.
The nymphs drift and dance with such ease
While I survey from the booth,
Swollen belly – a dead pregnancy, alone,
Aching, ache.
Arms lift, hair twists, smooth and unnerving.
Dance, dance little nymph,
Barefoot amongst the moon-streaked trees.
Twirl for me, go on,
Please – for me and only me. I must
See how you do it.
Your delicate, effortless procedure,
So I can study you, and it,
And weep because I can’t possibly do it.
Can’t be like you,
No, not ever. Never.
Forever I will catch
Glimpses of you while avoiding my own reflection.
Forever I will try to
Be like you: gentle, fragile, dainty.
I’m an ugly old nymph;
Expired milk.
Chunky and cold
Right down to the brittle blood bone.
Where I ache and ache
Till the bones finally break,
And I can take my place,
Miniscule in Mercury’s wake.