The first year of blood was drowned in the ocean
matted steel lined the straw chaff's brittling downs
the cracks in the pavement enveloped the world,
and the call centres melted to sand
\
you speak
through a hole in your chest
ah, no , not missing,
more
just
estranged from itself
(don't worry mines bigger)
\
the second was garrotted on the sinews of cloth
its body dumped by the bay
the opaque gloss in its eyes shattered to dust,
as the blue and red lights echoed away
\
your smile's apodeictic,
dressed in your stretcher of red
the world tumbles
round your kneecaps swollen kisses
dripped out of glistening thread
\
the third took seventeen bottles of pills
and breathed heaven through a canal of rolled mortgage bills.
It swallowed its repayments through a rusted spray-can
and swam
in bleached birch trees by the sea
\
i had a theory that day;
“it's all a false dichotomy,
one side to two coins:
eat the apple, be banished from heaven;
eat the pomegranate, be imprisoned in hell.”
you made fake retching sounds
and we laughed at the esoteric stupidity,
but when the bus arrived at the gas station early
we found we'd left the tickets in the hotel lobby.
\
\
the forth died in conception
never to know the carress of the real
while the fifth
was born a billowing desert
but died a still field of glass.
/
my lungs are chocking on empty air
they just want to fly,
but I keep them trapped here.
/