God Almighty. It puts the fear in you.

Jesus Christ. Again?

Yes, again. Don’t be a ***.

Oh please.

Jesus.

A hanging silence.

You know William Paley?

No. Go on.

Oh. Paley’s Watch?

******* go, James.

Uh, Paley’s Watch is a theory that the universe is too complex to exist by chance, and therefore there must be a creator. I mean, just like the existence of a watch presupposes a watchmaker ‘cause it’s too complex to be there by chance.

And you eat that?

Yes, or something similar. What offends you so ******* much anyway? So I believe-

It’s defeatist. Jesus Christ, the only reason you and anyone else believes this dogshit is ‘cause you’re ******* terrified of dying, and the reason a ******* graveyard puts the fear into your thick skull is ‘cause you want to join them when you croak. That’s what it is, it’s ******* insurance.

Another silence.

Okay. Alright, fine, it’s insurance. But I am playing this insurance, see, into my benefit. I believe in the creator, and if it turns out he’s watching me he’ll put in the good word and I spend my afterlife in eternal sunshine, and if he’s a scam like you say it is I join you in blackness or hellfire. I win either way.

Oh, very faithful, doggy. Arf arf.

Oh, for the love-

What’s life worth if you’re so sure where you’re going? I reckon I’d rather drink and steal **** and burn in hellfire than **** away my life in the service of some shitbird in the sky who may or may not exist.
Jesus, mother-

Stop ******* blaspheming.

********, James.

James?

Mm?

James?

Yes, I can hear you. What?

Do you, um… d’you think it’s… is it still ****** if they’re, you know… not all there? I mean, if their brain isn’t working and their eyes are listing, but they’re still breathing? Kind’ve dead, but there’s still life in them?

The soft trickling of rain.

What the **** kind 'f question is that to ask?

I just…

Listen, okay? It was a kindness we did him. You have to understand this-

I just don’t think that’s right. That kind 'f power. I mean, his head came apart like a ******* eggshell.

The soft haze of white noise. The sound of meat.

Jesus. Jesus Christ. The *******…

A giggle.

The ******* gall. You’re coming over religious. This isn’t like you.

I know, I know. It’s… hypocrisy. Phony. I hate myself for it, but somehow what happened…I mean, what we did… doesn’t feel right. It’s not alright. I mean, did you see his eyes? His head… came apart like a *******…

A choking sob.

This isn’t like you, you know. Going to pieces over the past. Can’t be changed, you know that.

Thought. White noise.

****.

I’d just like to bury him, at least. Give him some kind’ve…

White noise. A guttural sob.

******* it. ******* it.

Ugh. **** this, man. I’m going outside.

The ragged scrape of rusted nails on gypsum. Footsteps like a mad zombie.

Oh Christ. C’mon, James. It’s dark. There are things out there now.

The footsteps stop. The rustle of an emaciated shoulder inside nylon.

I told you to stop doing that.

Hh-what? What?

The ****** blasphemy. You’re  laughing at me.

No. No I’m not. Listen, you think I care anymore about your ******* religion? You think I give any kind of **** about what you believe in? I’m too… (okay fine you’ve made your point) I care too much about what’s going on inside my own head. I don’t dream good dreams, ma- (okay i’m sorry jesus) I dream about losing my hands. I dream about you losing your hands. You know (****, man, you’re freaking out, calm the) you know what? I don’t think I even saw the bloodstain. I don’t even think the manhole was crusted up with anybody's ******* brains. I don’t think I saw the imbecile trying to eat smoke. I think it’s all in my **** head. I’m juh-hust –

His voice cracks. Guttural gasping sobs.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

A sigh. Rustle of clothes and the heavy thud of muscle against gypsum.

‘S alright.

Sobs that sound like laughter.

It’s alright. Look, see? I won’t go outside. Are there even things out there?

No. I d-don’t think there’s anything.

Okay. Okay.

Choking sigh.

James?

Hm?

We’re not going to Clifftown, are we?

No. No, we’re not.

James?

The ethereal reverberation of meat on slabstone. Gluttonous panting.

What…

Gasp.

Guh… What is it?

The wail of a starving infant splits the sacred air. Startled silence. Glass cracks on an infinitesimal level.

Oh. ****.

James, it wasn’t here a minute ago. It’s like it came out of the ******* stonework.

Yeah. I know.

Sigh. Wail.

It sounds hungry.

We don’t have any food.

I know.

Cloying limpet silence. The tightening of skin across barren cheekbones.

******, we can’t just leave it here.

It’ll die of hunger either way. I don’t even know what they eat.

James, I am not killing-

****, dude, neither am I.

The infant champs on air and draws rasping breaths.

We taking it with us, then?

******* hell. Yes.

What’ll we call it?

The rustle of papery cloth on a slabstone altar.

Him. It’s a he.

What’ll we call him, then?*

Silence. A guttural wail.

Edward. That’ll do for now.

Daniel?

A piggish snort. Crusted eyes crack open like the wings of a beetle. Ragged nails scrape against the red-worn desert of an adolescent jawbone. A fishlipped yawn.

Ugh. What?

What did you call that plant thing again?

Jesus, James. Waxwood. It's a reddish bark. Oozes this cloudy stuff if you crush it.

Oh. Yeah, of course. Sorry.

Ambient silence. Raindrops fill with rotting organic sediment and fall into the leaves around the
clapboard tollbooth. A zealous fist of ivy tightens its tattered fingers across rheumatic windowpanes.

Dan?

Mm?

Why don't you like to talk about Clifftown?

Ambient silence. Raindrops. Ivy.

I’ll tell you why I don’t like to talk about Clifftown.

Go on.

Sigh.

I was born there. Before all this happened, it was this small village where onions grew. Not many people lived there. There was... Christ. A church, a chemist, a library and a few houses. The biggest house was this tall yellow clapboard place, which was on the cliff by the sea. This kid who lived there. He wasn’t -

A thud as a gesticulating knuckle rasps against splintered pine.

-Ow, **** - didn’t look human. His head was big and soft like a berry, and his eyes were wide and wet and creepy, and he never spoke. It was like he was empty.

What’d you say his name was again?

Never did.

A dusty rubbing noise as the fluid is forced out of a cheekbone.

Leviticus Croker. He died when he fell from a low salt cliff into the sea or something. Can’t remember.

****. I’m sorry.

Don’t be. I hated him.

A lump of pressed asphalt sends a clouded multitude of motes spinning and passes screaming through the glass pane of the sunwards window. A chuckle.

That was a year ago. They had to blame somebody.

Oh. Right.

An eyelid raised in revelation traps a mote against the skin stretched taut across a young skull.

Right. ****.

two black eyes fixed
on a purple sky
clouds float like bruises
bad blood flying high

spring grows like a cancer
summer makes you cry
night time hurts all over
the moon is a black eye

youll wake up one day
everything will be okay

autumn leaves you homeless
red leaves bleed you dry
winter hits you like a punch
the sun is a black eye

i promise

youll wake up one day
everything will be okay

The moon shone on the trees and found
The trees were paler than the moon.
The wind was a peroxide stain
That stabbed, wormlike, toward the veiled fastness of my brain
The wind that skinned me ‘til I stood, naked and raw;
The corner of my mouth cradled a pestilential sore.
My throat was lined and thin and wan
As though it held the cranium of an antique and parasitic swan.
I turned my mouth toward the origin of my demise
And said,
“ I vowed to die amongst the trees
While human hands removed my clothes, and closed my crusted eyes
And human voices stilled my vague unease
But this will do for now.”
A crow wheeled above as I keeled over in the dust and saw
The sacred steepled chapel of somebody’s fleshless body
Writhe beside me, and in hollow whispers fall;
I closed my eyes and ushered in the shadows as the night began to crawl.

He took a shotgun out one night
'cause loosened teeth and injured pride
had driven him out of his mind.

He loaded her sat on a rock
while Douglas firs shook in the dark
and beetles crawled beneath the bark.

He laid the gun across his lap.
While beetle larvae squirmed in sap
he grunted once, and doffed his cap.

A slug of whisky stained his breath
yellow saliva flecked his teeth
stars shone upon the lonely heath.

A slug entered into his head.
When morning came, the sun had bled
into the clouds, and all was red.

She was a weird slipshadow of a girl
All churlish silences and artless gloom
She’d come to realise herself before her waking time;
Lost happiness in periodic tantrums and cold looks,
Ate little, and immersed herself in books
Found solace in the solitude of sparsely-furnished rooms.

She knew herself too well - she took her flaws
And scrawled them on the wall in solvent ink
Her logic being that her social standing
Was diminutive
And nobody would truly give
A righteous ****, should she be found
Floating face-down, amongst the bullrushes.
Perhaps there would be solitude in death,
Solace in God.
Because it’s ****** to be free,
And that’s too sad.

Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.

Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.

Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!


Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-******-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!

No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre - lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.

A little red bird
Drags a beaded yellow thread of blood
Across a sullen sky
And comes to sleep, a crumpled shape
Upon the murky water draped across the stone canal.
I feel the icy touch of guilt
Like spilt red wine inside the glass case of my mind
Because I feel it is banal
To watch the stain of ****** seep like nicotine across the flag;
Because I am serene
Upon my nails is drawn the verdant green of moss
And blood that goaded from beneath a cross;
And now it sinks below the water of the stone canal
And suddenly there is no guilt
Though one worm-ridden bird floats down to rest amongst the silt.

I am feeling very ******* nervous at this moment
Cold sweat. Twisting gut.
It seems I’ve worked myself into a rut
And now I’m freaking out.
My face is tighter than it ought to be
A good lobotomy would calm me down.
A local anaesthetic would suffice;
I’d usher in the ice,
And let a needle perforate my cranium.
My nerves would lie prostrate.
I would be quite devoid of love or hate.
I’d cease to stab at mortal ties;
Cease to believe immoral lies
(And then the ice, the numbing ice
Would quicken my demise.)

He stands
A silhouette against a lifeless flat expanse
His flaccid tallow-yellow hands clasped awkwardly across the rails
The skin is white beneath his nails
The fear beginning to ferment
His shallow-knuckled grip indicative of lunatic intent

Intent to finally insuate his end into the books
To compensate for all the awkward silence and dead looks
Insinuate himself amongst indifferent carbon molecules
His skin and sinew separate from all the inconsistencies
Immortalised in asphalt now
A martyr on the asphalt now
Away from death and listing eyes.

The beauty holds herself with grace.
Piano fingers weave a lace cocoon around a golden tress,
In full view of the populace.
An autumn exhalation
Breathes an epitaph for every secret limbless layer of her mind;
And all that she can do is laugh
A brutal laugh. Their smiles are so unkind.

In a clapboard boarding house I lie
And I am half-organic;
Several days ago, a new friend
Smiled. I watched his unscarred hands extend
An invitation cordial;
A half-hour, and I knew the panic
Tasted on the air potential *****,
Eyeballs rolling from the ordeal.

Now I feel a man primordial
A human made to mould.
A person finds there’s constance in decay
When all their friends are cold.

Our hero lifts his head.
He does not bathe because he woke up late again.
He dreamed the dreams he always dreams
And night-time and bright cloth muffled his screams.
Industrially lubricates his hair
And he is told it doesn’t suit him
And he says he doesn’t care.
Our hero is a liar too, it seems.
He eats a meal he does not taste.
He will be empty when the sun turns pale, and the earth to paste.
Now our hero looks so chaste
And he knows he is pretentious-
Now he lays his brain to waste
And sweeps distortion through the songs of birds
To leave them bleeding in the dust.

He feels frail, and his heart is beating faster than it should.
He feels that this cannot be good.
His tongue now tastes of blood between his teeth of wood.
The feeling does not suit him.

Later, digits drowned in antiseptic
He will feel like a heretic
As he voices his opinions of a person as pathetic.
Thinking, “I should call him ****,”
But cannot find a window for a moment to succumb
To the fabricated beauty of a consequential phrase.
Anyway, he knows it would not suit him.
As he walks, he tries an air of menace
But it does not suit him.

Later, our hero receives some news
Surprised, he finds his brain is on a high
And that the feeling doesn’t suit him.

Why will he throw his body to the breeze?
Because boredom is a nervous disease.

The salt that seeps from cracks in fractured stonework
Kills the man that drinks, in desperation, from the walls.
It spreads a web of sordid dreams across the glass behind his eyes
And his lies cannot overcome
His fingers cannot overcome
The darkness, though he tries.
And thus the man that drinks in desperation from the stonework dies
And nothing but the walls will close his eyes.

“Haha! Dangling by his shoelace
- ******* shoelace - from his ivory tower!” Oh, **** me,
Priceless.
Watch - his hair is plastered spiderleg across his brow
His fringe as bland and tasteful as his alopecia will allow.
“The ******. Never took a little pride.
“Come on, don’t give me that. He never tried.”
And now he stands, and laughs, and someone’s died.

High above the ultra-white plateau
a vultures wheels in an amino helix
above a dead horse. Branded upon its left flank is the word
“Mulatto”.
In the forest far below
an ilex rattles for the dead.
The river, pregnant with shrapnel
sulks and stagnates, her belly full of lead.
The plains are cratered as the Moon
the purple heather soothes the raw stone wound
and whispers that the fighting will be over
very soon, and all the scars will heal.
Their fires have turned our bones to meal.

The mountain gods are sighing now
and dying now, the endless sky their tomb.
Rainclouds loom, seething with disdain
and seek to quench the hungry yellow grass.
Rain lashes through the mountain pass.

Rainwater sifts into the soil
and we do not forget.
Blood chapel-sacred, black as oil
and we do not forget.
Shrapnel is sown like seeds into the spoil
and we do not forget.

My veins are sewers beneath my skin.
There is a cage where my skull should be
And inside this cage which stands like the skeleton of an October tree
There are worms that are knotted together in a way that allows them to think as one.
My stomach is full of writhing parasitoid wasps
That move in a way that makes them apparent to the eye that looks for them.
Only three months past they were injected into my bloodstream inside a miniscule submersible
Capsule.

My skin is nothing but maggots.
My tongue flails beneath the weight of hypodermic needles that are invisible even to the eye that looks for them.

The opinions of the worms are made apparent through my tongue even as it sprawls beneath the needles.
My lungs are full of dust and the dust is full of nacre and the nacre is wrapped around gypsum and graphite Which are dust to the eye that does not know these words.

I lay my head upon the altar
Censers filled with weeds and salt from
Seas long fled
Inside my head
And vestal ****** cover me in oil
And light my bier
And follow me awhile along the pier
For soon I will be dead.

Come see my prayers laid bare across the floor
The clutching fingers that can’t close around existence anymore
Come see my life sprawled underneath a pin
Come cold hosannas wash me free of sin
Come heaven and bright water Christ don’t leave me now.

The craven wakes.
It is alive with narrow insect grace
And hung with trailing cobwebs,
Swathed in shadows red and brown.
Its scalp is silvered down
And pocked with craters nape to crest;
The craven cracks a rigid stance
A sideways glance
And twitching muscles break the skin of dust.

Wet limpid eyes absorb the calculated gloom -
The cluttered claustrophobia of that morphine-scented room;
A spastic jolt - a helpless wasted cry
A moment of collective silent-mouthed insanity
A sad hand flutters open like a flower.
A sour taste;
Lack of blood inside an unfamiliar face.
Long fingers trace the lines of unknown years.

A stark solidity of truth; a dreadful revelation
A cloying yellow smile hangs like a joke
A laugh begets a croak.
A human starts to choke.

The craven sleeps.
Slumped in a peaceful sprawl upon its chair
Clutching a point made moot by modern logic like a prayer.

An old man lives in a white house
Outside his house there is a bed of flowers
The old man’s life is in its twilight hours

I feel sad for the old man
Because he dawns on every day
And all his friends are dead or gone away

There’s a young woman who puts food upon his plate
And every time she turns her back his pupils visibly dilate
I’ve seen it - how the old man skins her with his eyes
She tells him soothing lies
About how long his heart has left
The old man craves a solitary death

The young woman wears a wooden cross around her neck
The old man cannot eat white bread
And all his friends are gone away or dead
And that’s no way to be
Wouldn’t you agree?

One old man in a white house with the desire to commit
One young woman in a chair on the front porch with her throat slit
That’s no way to go
That young woman is as white as snow
No glass coffin for her, though

Bun an old man’s wounds ache deep
He goes inside to drip and weep
And later that night sings with shining angels in his sleep