Mask

 

Mask

 

 

Less disease, less death,

only a shortness of breath,

imprisoned by a man-made mesh,

in a gasp of black and blue.

Is that you? Or is it me. So hard to see:

Uneasy to tell if a mouth is smiling

when only steamed eyes are left.

Even they are lost under shaggy fringe,

as they slowly forget how to smile.

Clammed up in chowder growing colder,

half facing, half faces growing older

frozen into mocked up greeting.

Is it possible to remember

that last time you inhaled her mouthful

of dizzy kiss? Particular particulates,

born of air too toxic to taste,

keep safe distance just in case.

In a giddy fit of revolution,

I ripped that plaster from my mouth.

Underneath my nose, lips exposed,

pulled it hard beneath my chin.

It might’ve revealed sardonic grin,

had there been any warmth within,

as elastic snapped with vicious sting.

Kippered

 

Kippered

 

 

First thing every morning,

I think not of you. Unkippered,

my washed eyes flicker open,

blink darkness into soggy focus:

fingers snag on fluorescent lighter,

pillowing pink back drowns in bed,

as flamenco flames billow,

dancing hot, cha-chars

my fingers and thumbnail.

 

Barely light my cigarette,

on the third or fourth attempt.

Suck on it, chest deep,

release lungful of smoky hiss,

will serve instead of your kiss.

 

Later, thick struggles with quilt,

heaves over gilt heavy eyes,

lost in thinking - is there honey,

or coffee - still for tea?

And sinking back into silt,

unmoved; you move me not,

unbesotted, unbewitched,

and totally unhooked,

never will my cobwebbed mind

relinquish another guilty look.

 

Finally, squinting at clock,

the unflicked hangnail ash

burns my chest in shock,

I rub lunar landscape pocks,

taste a scent of singeing hair,

gusting on reconditioned air,

to fill those half lusty sails.

 

You do not fill my kippered brain

with your memories walking undead,

and tomorrow, I’ll unremember you again,

smoke circles in crumbling crimson red.

Beast Nourisher

 Beast Nourisher

 

Sleep. Drawing curtains cross yesterdays,

like rain washing, colours running black

together on a half-remembered palette.

 

An amateur artist. Dips rush bristle brush,

mixing grey fogs with misty cloud crush,

blanking out past life on travelled canvas.

 

Was it only one day just gone he lived?

Alive and blinking, past and thinking,

begin again to build fresh character

in living dramas that show don’t tell

until old anxieties reassert in strength,

grey fears cast their shadows at length.

 

Suns dawn, rise and fall, arc and set,

sleep comes again, and he will forget:

 

The same stains,

the same rains,

flush the same black spiders,

down the same drains

backwards in gyres,

forwards in fires,

sleeping but forever tired,

nourish the beast 

with life's feast.

 

Her fingers comb his dream-mind ceaseless,

both ghost garden there, forever peaceless,

Until cracked his face like cracked his heels

rubbed sore on leather sandal satchel, feels

her strap across his back in welts and weals,

awakes anew yet always old, it never heals.

I Am Angel, Hear Me Roar

 

I Am Angel, Hear Me Roar

 

 

I am Angel now, so take my hand.

Can you not see a sweet black light?

It dances over our heads, passes

a baton, two relay runners barefoot,

grind up grit, trod hard underneath,

to embed itself deep in skinned soles.

No need to run through closing doors:

Now I am Angel, and hear me roar.

 

Now I’m an Angel to shoulder burdens,

for so long driven into bleeding hands,

nails palmed, your secret aces flushed

on green baize, all wheels all spinning

black on red, twisting fate’s games,

to roll the ball against my revolutions.

No need to cover your face and cry:

I am Angel, now watch me rise.

 

I am Angel now, Wendy, and your life

waits for a day yet to dawn. Scolding:

Scornful cold shoulders; all metal wool,

a panty pad pan scrubber that weeps,

leaking olive oil, yet to boil or sear,

leave roads not taken for roads of fear.

No need to sob, break into grinning,

I am Angel, now hear me singing.

 

Your Angel, Peter Pan am I, an Oberon

that does but beg a little changeling boy,

proud Titania. See soil on your hands,

fingers that do lick sticky seaside rock.

Look, he’s using your hands to wipe grey

charcoal streaks from a barbecue face.

Break not my spells and try recanting,

smile on Angel and kiss his chanting.

 

You were Angel, you held me all thralled,

so long waiting, never calling, crystalline;

while poor girls push rods into rose petals.

Still, my open arms in love outstretched,

bass guitar throbs in dreams unwracked,

Follow me wanton flesh, throb wet spirit:

Look up, here’s Salt Peter, see me soaring,

while I am Angel, come, unite in roaring.

 

I am Angel, from darkness now returned,

to share with you what I have learned,

what we should keep, what must be burned,

your face a blank page that will be turned

and written upon. Strong nib strokes bold,

love’s ink inscribing, heats up what’s cold,

to new from old, from wrongs to rights:

Watch Angel now uprising in glorious flight.