(i only dream of imps)
sweaty, high-handed, they reek of brandy
although i know what they desire i bury my fists in stiff pockets
all the simple things i believe to be made up of are really technicolor and abstruse
(i only dream of this)
every night they spit viruses down my throat
bite jibes in my deepest cushiony parts
chew gold rings like stale cheerios
swathing me
in sticky mud-like paint
thin and sour
(i only dream of hell)
grafted unholiness in pits of ink
tumultuous
sore heat seething from flowery bits
greedy imp hands handling soft pillow bodies
acid breath inflating pink fleshy lungs like round dollar store balloons
(i rarely dream of clouds)
when i do they are rotting clumps of loose soil
left untended by my perverse imps
holding petals to their fever pitted cores
redressing me in noxious defamation
(i'll dream again soon)

i have learned to breathe under holy water -
grew gills so strong they are
lined with celestial gold.

the ocean is a puddle to me now.

and i ***** pearls of pain,
lick them clean with my acetylene
tongue.

my acids will heal what the world cannot.

pills and love potions  
can't take away
my virginity.

i am clean, so clean.

the devil watches me and
cringes at my radioactive light.

for i am dead and alive all at once.
poison, poison.

the radium drips from my lips like
babyspit and i am too pure
for god himself

so i offer my golden blood
to a higher power

that would take the pureness of it all
and make it an ounce
of what i could have been

the moon
took shelter in my chest and
made a home
of my husk of a body

but it's too
big and bleeding
to hold tight

twirl ballroom spritz
    'cross abandoned parking lots

weave your lamentations
    out in umber mist

gin and panadol
white arsenic cordial

death drive in moderation                      


bushy dough
down your gumboot towers
yyo faggg
fark your sign'a'lings
carped up in the haddock pouch

in maudlin dreams
swirl your phone sleeve
round your wristflick
                                         nah
you blooster mate
right cranberry

where the **** is it? where the **** did you put it? it's not funny, hahaha, oh god, hahaa…..


but     later,    


  radio incinerator
   nightcap in sodium cloud
beached tire tree

swollen mudflap dreams
  voice of sinew street
the
     wooden flakes     clap the wind

terra-cotta creaks muffle
choir kiss velvet thin in
  empty mountain air, sinai drift
( peace be with you, peace be )

         a long year        here's to another

–


  gotta visit the family in an hour
coffee and cake,
  brother and i will argue 'bout politics
he runs some business, i've never worked in my life
he uses productivity to hide his loneliness
i use social grace to hide my emptiness

we probably understand each other perfectly
       but will never steep to sympathy


–

big canary
best in school
sing your
lelujah for the gulls

break your wings in
crumbs and sandwich tins

burrow down to a
                     maize of glass
    build a temple of sleet
   and have a cry in it

–

bed lump, bed lump   lump
lump

  fight your frozen toes

  last week a lily bush grew in our drain,
pools of **** and tissue clogged and sputtered out
  the flowers were real pretty tho

–

it's like that feeling, you know, when you wonder, if    you
  left the gas cooker on, with the children still sleeping
an anxious terror overruns you, but you gotta get to work
too late to turn back now,
  you can't just stop everything every \
time you realize how easy it would be to loose it all

so you keep on,   determined resigned comfort
   despite an unshakable certainty
                                 it all burnt away long ago

–

go for a walk to calm
            rolling cloud
valley glut
                       last light's wet custard haze
  a solitary bird tries to mate with its echo

  branches tear
cut weave through silence
            effervescent haze
  the
dust road hill the valley fall the blur below


i dreamt last night  an old crush held me
and pulled my teeth out one by one
i really miss her

–

and so you lie, there, thin cotton down, gunked up on the drip,
   i read you a story,
                                  you don't want me to
               tired and disorientated, falling into sleep, among the
            bleeps and light,                 smell   of alcohol and saccharine
                                        you can't handle the leech of words right now,
but you insist i continue anyway.
i need this,  i
to prove i was there   by your side,
  for your sake,
and you are too polite to refuse me this narcissism,
too scared to shatter it all
          and turn away at the last

–

oh, hey! sorry i haven't
  yeah
       yeah no,
it's been years, hasn't it?
i- i know i know, i was the one who insisted-
and then never made the effort
what's up?
uh, nothing new, really
  still haven't fixed the wiring
still just
        flickering
anxious feeling
ambling along a
                           longing

that paradoxical redemption,  that

           impossible unity
    of innocence and forgiveness

…

yeah, no,
    nah

–

and so you float up, out of the vents, above the roof
  into the clouds, the rain sets in,   oh - the
       drier's broken, you can't afford to get these clothes wet -  but
the  pattering feels good on your blistering skin

  so you drift
      melt

and
       far below
you 
             hear
                                                  the bell's pale ring
   sunday murmur bubble and gather
       muffle ***** wring shoelace voices
              river wiped bored communal toes
          mudfleck shoes and patchwork rags

  a turn, another, then,
                                worn timber creak


the church doors open

thirteen years old, you were too young
i cant help but say it pitifully, words trickling down my chin in strings
of empathy i dont know is really there or not. i want it to be
there were cracks by your fingerbeds and they were filled with sun,
bright and noisy, humming into still summer air while you slept
i couldnt, not that year

youre i-dont-know how old now,
someplace far, someplace i-dont-know how far but wherever it is its quiet and cold, i hope youre sleeping
or floating, i guess
skin turning to stardust as you near a sun that was never your own