Forgeries (Angel Rising Part 7)

Forgeries (Angel Rising Part 7)

 

 

Forged of ashes, forged from plague,

a plasticine cast who passed for clay,

poor actors flushed in busted play

do keep good company. Everyday

bent-backs, soaked in screen wash

pass piss nit-witless views of loss,

inured to taste, inured to thought,

shrubbed by all that shit they bought.

Bereft of spirit, bereft of grace,

make up pencils forge made up face,

skin-baggers slop in hung-dog's rain,

narcissi May fly pocked and plain,

swear never sweat to shoulder blame,

but lick chapped lips of leprous Fame.

Cease your lament burdened sighs:

for to dream in thinking is to dye

this Albion in green turned grey,

drape her in dusty webs of decay,

drag her wakes, drag her lakes,

shake her head until all heads ache,

thumb fell skies with howling cries,

come promised day of Angel Rise.

 

My God, my God, what have you done?

They’re clapping hands,

they’re grabbing sticks,

beating the shit out of saucepans,

they forage foodbanks,

lick empty cans,

rubber stamping blonde-haired man:

and with a sneer, Jerusalem!

 

Here's to ten years passed

since we breathed our last;

you tipped a mumbled brogue

into my steaming pan to boil,

simmer, seethe, toil,

and though we died, I heard it said

we are still the still undead.

Unsparked flesh wanes into wax,

iced ivy chokes grey graveyard yew,

you speak in stone beyond the pew,

pledge we never draw our final curtain

or take our final bows.

 

By sallow bindweed's choking grip,

I think it fit you never did,

learn words like Brexit or Covid,

they’re drubbing pans,

they’re burning brands,

they’re clubbing cans,

breathing blind faith into blind man,

warming death with freezing hands,

black blisters vote for starving lands.

You, my friend, sing here within,

we will take lessons from pigeons;

with cocked pistol, consider him.

 

Improper poised feathered-flecked

simpering pouts, plump double neck,

twists and shouts: ‘let’s twist again,’

he’s fish-eye lensing, zooming in,

all preen green metallic clatterwing,

throbs deep throat coarse,

thumps notes full hoarse,

and flush with nature gushes forth,

she flutters coy, deigns to peek,

at no time almost beyond his reach,

coquettish smirk tattooed on beak,

bids him mount and fulfill,

thinks leadfoot driver and knee-jerk drill,

pecks idly at those seeds that spill.

He’s sated now and hymns of how

go forth, seeks new humps to plough,

when it’s over, it’s all over again,

no more than empty flitter brain

billing one note adverbs with a wink,

coos all the cliches fit to stink

absolutely, seriously ramping up

your turbo-charged plummy fuck.

Oh, but will she’ll buy it?

Why yes, she’ll vote for more,

force feed bush tucker and devour, 

beat her pan to stick her craw.

 

Shush, my child, at heeding door:

something wicked this way comes

and when it does, it does on dais,

speaks white burdens in tones pious,

flickers his tranquil forked tongue bias,

slips softly onwards in slippered feet,

and, oh, Mephistopheles:

Honey words and hooded eye:

you’ll believe that shit can fly.

As below, so above,

his jellied hand in rubber glove

probing arses, rubbing chins

with slobber-chopped grin; coining in.

His is a salmonella oven ready deal,

your microwave meal for one

is served ready player none for all,

easily bought with little thought,

raise your shovels and fork it.

Does it burn upon your twisted tongue,

corkscrew within invisible radiation?

Last supper of a napalmed nation

glimpsed through cindered glass.

 

Is yours the face that launched a thousand quips?

I see no rank, no right, no leading light,

above lettuceless chest, there are no pips,

just a thick dribbling slab of trifles trite.

Is yours the face that kissed a thousand lips?

Those eyes are cornered obtuse angles,

fraught with fuckery as sentiment drips

in barefaced threads of web entangled.

Is yours the face a waning nation gripped,

held to grieving chest and looked for succor?

Bitch. You robbed the poor to feed the rich;

slithered through life, you lying fucker,

and numberless flies that orbit your head

will fuck you thick in your feculent bed.

 

Vote false Gods, poll false dread,

pour idle out of temple; they assemble

all proud pouting chests, resemble

nothing less than pandemonium made,

troglodytes stooping blade by blade.

Nothing more than hell is come;

if you can, it’s time to burn.

Let those who can’t pick up their sticks,

so glad in joy it makes us sick,

roll rattled pots and shake up pans,

let every woman spoon every man,

let she or he who is without sin make most noise,

cast most stones, break most windows and destroy,

let boys be girls, let girls be boys,

and as above, so below,

thick falls generation made of snow.

 

Poverty. Famine. Knock doors, Plague

herald Angels hark thrice end of days

and warm rich pigs in blankets, give them time

to make hay while the sick shines.

Trough snouts in fat-chequed statistics,

abuse dictionaries, rewrite linguistics,

jerking deep amongst flighting locusts,

drawing all those best forgeries closest.

Waves swept seasick care homes

like new brooms, your children grieved

of something old for graves to thieve,

clover devils fondling stone erections,

wrapped selection boxes for collection,

passed out trash bags for protection,

and to tuck your corpses in at night.

Track camera cross deaf and dumb land,

my God, look, they still whip pans,

like simpering monkeys beating chests,

let’s sod the old, the old can rest,

in sodden sheets they soak the best.

 

They filched mutton to blood-cross doors,

night's cards shuffled to deal out scores

in Lynam's voice, Frank Bough's eyes

and forged faces theme-tuned grim,

bleating lamb sermons with gravy grins:

protect, survive and social distance,

with mint sauce on the side assistants,

thump bogus tubs with fake insistence,

bloodletting grief from all existence,

warping podiums with crooked stench

and with each other’s sputum drench,

winking at cameras, berate the state,

scribble remedies at breakneck pace,

less of Hancock; more Little and Large,

delivering prognosis from wine bars

while downing beers and necking gin,

kicking down doors to break them in,

we'll hand out the hats and hooters.

 

Nobody thought to bring the shooters

as the dust settled. Some of those left

would defend all this with dying breath

if they weren’t dead already. Inquests

were not even worth the wastepaper.

Have a quick one, piss off, see you later,

for now it’s time to liberate the pound,

purge migrants from hallowed ground.

Shackle Albion to history’s tall ships,

all empire within ghost nation’s grip,

cry havoc and let the dogs of dust slip

sly from pantry doors tooth-gripped 

dripping all the meats they could rip

from corpses. Drifted seaward by fixes

plotted on tissue, junior school pictures,

primary colour flags, X marks the spot,

hand’s up, Miss, some cream haired clot

spouts naught for all, and all for naught.

Now all who survive are all who rot,

Silents who plan lost lessons learnt

most of them dance on bridges burnt

without thought at all; art is scrawled

train trucks, piss sprayed closet walls,

drove music so deep within plastic bits

you can scarcely tune out pouting lips,

nothing autotuned sticks, it's ripped,

phone fiddled and faked manuscripts,

they’re talking pictures, filming sex,

posting that their lives are wrecked,

sucking up a debit life from living dreck.

 

With promises to raise you; a vowed

bringing back, returned windswept decks,

we once more could prowl the prow,

driving the swell, surfing the troughs,

but with what it seems, I've been enough,

I reached back for you with mind's hand,

but like seaweed you slipped into sand,

saw time shrouding Jacob's ladder

shrugged off years as years suck sadder,

dreamt in forgeries painted hush grey,

flayed by brushes sprayed day on day,

tasted egg-shelled lips and less to say,

but be damned if you don't regret it, boy,

every vision harboured we can destroy:

Grandmaster's flashpoint all furious five,

and if you think, think skinned alive,

but screw you all, here's an oiled within,

I rowed back where all channels begin.

Care not for grace, care less for sin,

walk on, walk on, faint heart for hope,

feel tracing fingers loose guiding rope,

so worn in labyrinth, so dressed in night,

who scarcely can lift sick fists to fight,

back to where all tunnels were made,

abandon your shadow cast pitched shades,

her empty ventures to reclaim a child,

all futile hands scrubbing shame for guilt.

 

And here that door stands opened wide,

those mass within who glimpse outside,

now free of burning, yet burning still,

search hearts for pity or hearts for kill,

plough blades and gash at sterile Earth,

entomb the old, wombs new to birth

chew revolutions of corkscrew cutter,

scything trap teeth and steely shutter,

we butterflies upon wheels that flutter,

forgotten echoes of pasts that mutter

of all too much; watch thyself at least

and did no one think to fetch a priest?

But in passages long of mist-fall strong

back to places where he once belonged,

he can no longer hear their songs,

things once felt he now feels wrong,

where strangers live in stranger homes,

wear faces that he might have known

in forgeries false. Stands upon very brink,

sloughed time below as time to think,

shed threefold skin to shred disguises,

walks forth enflamed and Angel rises.