A little girl meets a
Stranger’s gaze on
A crowded train.
Her smile rips open
His rusted shell,
Exposing the cancers
Scuttling within.
At once he flinches
Away, unable to face
The shapeless horror.
A mind reels with
The stench of sulphur,
Urine cloud gnawing
Away at delicate
Strands of logic.
An eye sees the sky
Stained by a sunflower
Sun, beads of butter
Drip down a grapefruit
Face, following a furrowed
Brow and curving round
The laughter lines.
Banana fingers curl
Into lemon fists that beat
Upon a wall of cheese
And a canary voice fills
The air with nicotine wailing.
The corpse lies solidly on the
Glistening grass, an innocent soul
Lies shivering somewhere within.
Wailing eyes roll in their sockets,
Searching our vacant faces for the
Flickering visage of a strange
Inexorable companion.
Streams of blood drip from flared
Nostrils, where ragged gusts of golden
Air surge with painful protestation.
A perpetual drizzle hangs in
The sky, a vast billowing curtain
Which flaps on the threshold
Of a small doorway to silence.
A pillar of searing flame
Bisects the sky,
That shimmering arch of
Pestilent vapour,
Burning nothing,
But the oxygen
I breathe.
I strike the ocean with
My double-edged sword,
Causing a wound that
Does not exist,
The sharpened blade
Rusting in the roiling
Currents of murky madness.
I beat the rock face with
A silent rose,
The earth shaking with
My shivering bones,
A cascade of petals
Splashing the ground
In crimson streaks.
Technicolour flashes illuminate a drab,
Drip-drawn sky, as clouds collide in
A kaleidoscopic fusion.
Everywhere the screaming subsides
While grotesque fear is sucked into
The seething darkness.
I stand on a bridge of melting glass
From where I observe the blurring silence,
Bracing myself for the return of chaos
They come in droves to the beach,
Edging ever closer to the raging sea.
The sun regards them indifferently,
They all seem the same under its
Unblinking gaze.
The multitude eye each other warily,
Wondering why they came here.
One by one they enter the ocean,
As the currents languidly caress
Their decaying bodies.
Wall after wall
Mirror after mirror,
Dead end
Surrounded
By the chains of
Logic.
Material weight
Material truth
Material lie
Drowning in a
Swimming pool
Filled with
Cash.
Give birth to a
Mercedes
Call it Arthur,
Invest in a wife
Buy her a dream
Live in Legoland.
Take a trip
On the magic
Credit card,
Slag off
Your best friends
And give your
Boss your smoothest
Machiavellian smile.
Armani chin
Gucci stomach
Ralph Loren legs
Nike feet
Adidas arms
(What more?)
Suck it all in
Chew it all up,
Quick! Time’s running
Out the hidden exit,
You’re being left
Behind!
You still haven’t
Filled up the hole
In your chest.
A boy and a girl
Dance in circles
Grasping each other’s
Outstretched hands.
His eyes are blind
And a giggle quietly
Explodes from his
Mouth every time
She counts the turns.
Her hair flashes in
The sun, her voice fills
The silence, which hangs
Beyond the pinprick of
The moment.
Somewhere
A pin is falling,
Dropped from a
Seventh floor window,
Tumbling end over end,
Puncturing the pregnant
Void.
Somewhere
A shark is drifting
Within the dark depths
Of the ocean,
Its great tail
Propelling it towards
Oblivion.
Somewhere
A man is sitting
On a wooden chair
Staring at a faded wall,
While pondering silently
And eternally
Alone.
The daddy-longlegs skitters nervously
Through the morning air, coming to rest on
The gleaming tiles of the bathroom wall.
The hand begins its solemn arc of
Blurred perfection, fingers splayed
Wide in instinctive recognition.
The impact crushes the fragile skeleton,
Extinguishing a temporary existence.
The brain registers a pang of mourning, but
Sadness rapidly fades with the urge to release
Some shit into the municipal sewage network.