PIETÀ

It was you entirely.

You who taught

the singular mansion

of love, to me: your child,

your boy who nervously

sat still in a sea of convention.

Your Basilica beads were not

for Mary’s crushed child alone.

There was a foetus in that womb,

as you glanced at the Immaculate.

His breathless marble pin-ribs lanced

our muting love in teary-rued cheeks

for what should’ve been high horns.

O mother of earthly care,

how will I heal the doctor

that heals with a heart?

How will I assure the poor

and the rich alike for all

your general and licensed

good?

I ACHED FOR HIM

Jeremiah was chaffing on

about wheat and how

God got him drunk again

I had sipped cheap blood

I had cuffed my hands

for the first time since figurines

I broke for Him

I ached for Him

I rested my eyes

on a woman’s conduct

that was between business

and causality, coitus longitude

I broke for Him

I ached for her

I ached for Him

GRANTED THE DAWN

I knew it was new

as it peaked my cheek

and the pigeons did cuddle

in warmth and love

my cheap St. Francis medallion

hung aloft in ever-welcome falsity

that gave me an edge to commodity

FOR SHELBY

Bedlam brainsick,

Your mighty heart

Allowed no concession

Of sympathy

For your mighty heart

Stocked up the process

But cleared our conscience

Your requests

Never capitalised

By full or proud intent

Your stories

Sick, sad, and true

Your bovine lines

Scared many a witch

From her sorcery

Your gentleness

Left many a nurse patient

While you finished your cigarette

FOOLED

Perhaps I’m being fooled

by the religious wording

and matter

of, at this very thumb,

these, irreligious books

Pooh and Seuss

are too easily

the other monopoly

but what if I turn

to bus timetables

or to you

THE FOLLOWER

you taught me the words

I already knew

the public sensations

I had already felt

minimised by your prideful heart

I was the tiny flea with a golden spark

that hides and creeps within your space

your careless, guideless, invisible grace

I studied your nonchalance in photographs

like a betting man prowling the stables

for his horse of choice

to win, to fail

I’ll break it all down for you

through a personalised reading

of your own work and lifestyle

to the stock

through bars

to the vault

only you can dislodge

HALF-MOON IS ENOUGH

half-moon is enough

to submit my senses

twitch my feet back

into hellfire and bat

a spec of brimstone

away from the fore

but our humanity

is never enough to

inherit the mammon

poured into our ears

as we need to know

who or what does tilt

the invisible vessel

and why they lied

ONE ENTERING

ennui’s firmament

mixes like wax

betwixt  separation

between night & day

a new one entering

THE STOVE BELOW

I’ve been burnt here

and not for the last hour

the proportioned figure

ambles past my lust

Here it is happening

but no, she doesn’t heed

what hurts when the pride

does swallow the lower fire

and spits out the prickles

Brittle as her flaxen bones

too tiny for a whole soul

to cling to or to reject whole

No gods to protect

the healing process

of you belly-harm that

skin will compensate

Hoping he’ll never

ask or notice as

my concern must

rule singular

I ask for mollification

for my spleen that burnt bases

so I can repair the rotten riven

like so many never did before

Should’ve somehow known

to have commissioned the courts

but I was six-years old at the time

Burnt on your stove

thinly-veiled, below

beneath the comfort

and the warmth, home

My insularity vocalised

as my biceps sprung

and condensed my heart

to lax and unloaded air

But you’re so slow

to witness your

own moves and motives

it’s no longer repetition

for you or for your killers

STAY UNDER YOUR SHEETS

all these great poets

were bedridden

beyond and before

Keats and Proust

all sleepy-headed whiners

lying supine

on the whitest of sheets

softens the teeming brain

for ripe foggy thoughts

hair upon the pillow

wide and small

brushed aside

renews the white vessel

red coughs cannot undermine

the snowy world

of rising jagged ridges

of shadowed rivulets

completing the foundation

for rocky, runny thoughts

in this haven for shiftlessness

when to read

is only to write

as time is still

amongst the shafts

of the tiny Himalayas

the squirm

we can call a movement

within the discipline

of hospital corners

and the wondrous white

of no-further

yoked by white

these three layers

the dull patchwork

that sighs mediocrity

and takes no prisoners

of ambition

of fame

only the occasional sock

or a particle of dead skin

a tall order

for the gown

of a virgin

(First appeared in Crack the Spine, Issue 4, December 2011).

YOU WILL FLOAT ON YOUR PRIDE

Being very much from the old school of ‘I’:

I beckon, I plead, to see your multiple flairs.

I call back to what is chiselled on my heart

And report the findings for you to undermine

Yourself with. Ugly avarice is given cheap

Garments, by speaking the world’s truth in

Unfiltered air.

Now open up your head, let the breeze blow

Past so many failures of betrayal, leaving wild

Vagaries less distorted. But you have already

Jumped. Although you will float on your pride.