Unrest

On sapphire days
she emmanates waves of heat.

His kiss fills her mouth
with light-

persuasion she cannot evade.
She stays until darkness shimmers

hollows into cheek and neck,
undermines her gloss.

All the things she's laid
so carefully behind

rise up inside.

Last Call

Trumpets sound.
I open the bedroom curtains
to look outside.
Lights criss-cross the sky
in every direction.
Buildings begin to collapse,
tier upon tier.
Spores grow from the bed,
crusty and gelatinous tentacles
wave from among them.
Loud cries and wailing
rises up all around
and changes to shrieks of terror
as a dark horse gallops across the sky.

We have collectively imagined the apocalypse
so many times - finally
we have brought it into being.

Honeyboned

i
The animal urge is strong,
see how it stretches
its jaw with longing,

girds its loins with oil
and rouses hunger's glistening
pulse and throb. Even the weeds
are sprightly, green with vigour.

Among the vibrant grass is a cat.
Long soft smokey fur
and khol-rimmed, golden eyes.

She crouches over her prey,
lets the wing fan open,
allows a small fluster,
then catches the ruffed throat
to her again.

She scents the bones already -
toasted honey.

ii
There are dead birds
in the next room.
No heads, just wings
and tails, sometimes
laid in rows,
but also scattered.

The wings are cloud white,
hunched, as though lifting glory.
Here and there a surprise
of small mauve curls, like grapes,
have spilled from underneath.

A man is shouting -
shouting -
waving his broken penis
in my face.

I don't know how to fix it.
All I can think of
is to leave as fast as I can -
and the rows
of beautiful corpses.

Weasle

You are a poem with
a mouth full of sand.

Blexel Skimpolonius,
you plodded rezel,
I'm a lurch n scaffold
near your hurt.

Intall stretch n stretch,
but hush n posals
bode no good.
Weezall fried,
allied to smoke and fire tongs.

Soft n soft n cushy velve
heart n swells
a link to morphy
us'n dwells.

We sweet suckling, burn
within the belly brown,
the earth,
and hold.

A metal orchid opens claws
and blooms the scarlet phrase
of hell.

conversation with myself

This tree, wild with meat thorns,
once held the glory of god,
ignited for Moses.

See how it retracts
from the cracks of heaven
where light blades down.

See the twigs and branches,
twined in their frenzy of disarray,
a leafless, godless, bouquet.

So thinking about Moses
and the thorn bush,
weren't the Israelites cursed
after they made golden images
and worshiped them instead of God
when they went through the desert
to the land of Canaan?

I think so. Maybe.
Weren't they cursed to wander forever
and never have a land to call their own?

And isn't that what's happened to them?
They've been fighting for as long as I can remember-
cast out of so many places.

But the Jewish people don't accept Christ's coming,
or any of the new testament do they?

I don't think so.
But would you accept something that makes
much of your belief system obsolete?

So, God said that the Jewish people
were proud and stiff-necked didn't he?
But supposedly he made man in his own image.
So maybe he didn't like what he saw of himself
reflected back from mankind?

Do you still believe in God?

I don't think I believe in the sort of God
that looks like an old man with flowing beard etc.
I don't think God has a physical body,
unless he chooses to don one.
In fact, I don't think of God as a persona,
more as a set of qualities,
or as an energy with self awareness?

I feel a bit scared to say I don't believe in God.
Lightning might strike me.

That whole God thing
certainly sparked off a lot of shit
in the world didn't it?
It's like as soon as God chucked out the Israelites
it left the field wide open for a whole lot of other people
to start auditioning for the role of 'God's Chosen People.'

Yep. And how much blood has been spilled
all down the centuries
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And the diifference of opinion
over whether they're three or one.
I mean, what difference does it really make?

And now that we've screwed the earth -
now that those four angels have given up holding back
the four corners of the wind
and gone home for tea -
what was it all for now?


NB: I hope this doesn't offend anyone's religious beliefs. It was just a conversation I was having with myself
after I wrote the little poem at the beginning, so I thought I'd write it down and think about it for a while.
I have no religious persuasion. Don't believe in organised religion and have no agenda to peddle. Just thinking out loud.