Are you a cat or bird,
devil or saint?
Villain and victim, dichotic romantic,
bruised and beaten, ostracised.
Bruised and beaten, demonised.
A willow bending against cruel fashion's wind.

A thousand storms of impotent hate,
jealousies and malignant complaints.
Rain like sonnets before the deaf!
As your gifts are pearl before swine.

And yet thy brow is regal still.
The profile of a demon prince -
no matter what shape taketh the face.
Be thou Quasimodo or Adonis by fate.
Whose smile has lit a thousand candles
in thankless, bitter hearts,
and fires in the hearths of freaks
who need but a spark to break the leash.

Or art thou Prince of Cats?
Yearning for the freedom to roam, to hunt.
Seeking pleasure, his mistresses pats.
The enemy of closed doors and cold paws.

Or could thou be a bird?
Clipped wings, a gilded cage,
whose song can only go so far.
If not let to glide into the night, to rise,
to greet the dawn with bleary, satisfied eyes.
Of one who has been given the chance to soar!
Or else to wilt, and yowl no more.

Once, far away, Andalusia of time.
Was I, this dreamer, this student of crime.
Devouring textbooks with a gluttonous glee.
Of masters I conversed with, with lives like movies.
FBI-profilers, psychopathologists.

Faces carved from paleo-lithic stone.

The hearts of sailors betrayed by Triton.
Their ill-fitting suits an anarchists cry.

Oh blessed hearts long since buried in the plots,
of victims whose killers would never see man’s courts.
Who knew the world and hoped to teach I,
this fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.
This fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.

Sat I with the masters, in those secret little rooms
where the dead are shuffled to have chosen for them a grave.

And it’s never more real than when the beast sits still.
In the agonising ordinary glow of the halogen buzz
that shines on guilty and innocent alike.

To reduce us all to such pathetic things.

That if not for the debt, this creature’s crimes
one could pity being on such obscene display.
If it were not known to me, in great detail
the river of misery and depravity he had left in his wake.

As a mugshot robs the aura, so too the well lit room.

And I understood why it took a much colder mind.

As even though I possessed all the faculties which
could follow and track and trap the prey;
the predator must also ****.

And being in those secret little rooms
I knew I could not see it through.

I left it to those stronger than I
and leave my mark through other designs.

He is an echo of my desire.
The moon reflected in a silver bowl.
A mantle of the finest mink
That slithers over the skin; and
Evokes memories of a touch long gone.

He is a cool breeze in November.
A drop of lemon on the tongue.
He is the taste of quiet pleasure,
circled in the scent of roasted coffee,
To be drowned by the high notes
of a fine whiskey.

He is the wilted rose that scent lingers on.
The dead petals in a basin,
Swirling lightly with my breath.
He is the locke of hair kept safe
In a scrapbook of dying memory
Yellowed by time.

He is a lover lost,
And in the losing
Grows sweeter still.

Fiend. Thou art a fiend.
A hunger.
Devouring everything.
A flexion of might against right.
A curse upon men.
Thou art the bitter taste that follows a sweet sip.
Thou art the cold hurt of love, and
Many would know you as
The wound of guilt
For many have fellated your dagger
And been ****** by your bullet
To stumble and fall from life
Into a death of shame and remorse
A thousand black horses trampling the mind
A black dog that tears away our legs
This fiend that pours lava into our eyes
Till we rust as ships beached
Upon the shores of unjust suffering
Thou art a demon, a prince of woe
Tool of the righteous
Stave of the shamed
Bid me not hello
And we will share nothing more
To be alone is bliss
To be lonely
Is to be alone with you

I died once, did you know?
Slow, painful
The death of a thousand lost little girls
The death of trust
****** into my heart
a pain
a pain unlike any other
smothering, breaking, beating and bruised
wearing black and blue like a fashion statement
a police statement
in line up, I died again
His eyes, his eyes
his hands
the knife, the fist, the finger
The dead ringer for love
let the door open wide
he crept, he pushed
He haunts my hurting heart and
The tattoo of his fingers on my flesh
burns to life with every wave of thought
triggered by a careless friend
A living, lonely, dead end
A post traumatic stress disorder
Be careful, be quick, escape the memories
The sounds, the smells
The shadow
the shadow
this beating heart, provokes in kind
the yearning for a peaceful mind
but I was killed and so I died
I rest in pain and terrified
I live, I journey, I am killed again
Day onto day and hellish night into night
There is no grave, yet buried I became
Ten years yesterday
The devil
lingers on

I had a dream once
Circular in reason
Teasing me
Bruised and beaten
Sleeping
I wandered angelic
Dorothy and Alice
Through nightmare geographies
Landscapes cruel, beautiful
And strange
Talking crows
Enveloped my eyes
A crown of pearlescent feathers
Obscuring my vision and yet
I saw
A waterfall of tears
A guru on a lotus
He whispered
Whiskey breath and sleepy eyed
A hep cat hipster in hemp cap
Gin and tonic gripped
Like a life preserver
“All you need is love”
And I wandered
Lost

Our skins fell before the moon
Where only flesh finds itself
Crimson drops and drips
Wet with desire
A hunger
Tongues dance, teeth nip
The grating of your skin
The heady scent of death and rebirth
The smooth sweet lapping
Gluttony
The moon casts shadows upon
A golden meeting
Reverie
As I kissed what should not be kissed
And you ate what was not supper
A kiss for love
A kiss for desire
And a kiss for hunger
We died and were reborn

She is a miasma of regret and gin
My resurrection Mary bound by sin

We all have white mice and black dogs
We all have white mice and black dogs

We all have songs we cannot sing
Burdens to bare upon our wings
She is a gilded crown one cannot wear
A ghostly smile, a forbidden stare

Dancing graveyard tangos before mother lune
She swirls and cascades and flies up to the moon
Her smile the jagged blade that ripped her wrist


And yet her shadow still persists


A spectre of memory upon my pealing wall
A heartbeat echoing from beneath the floor
A happiness known only to be ******
Inundated by **** and sand


She comes to me with wailing moans
The intolerable moments I am alone
She comes to me with obscene plans


And how I long to take her hand
To take the claw, take the blade
Bid adieu to sweat and shade
Oh bells and flame and an absence of pain
That endless slumber, oblivion, peace
Where broken girls find sweet relief
To be judged by lord on high, to be saved
To find the comfort I forever crave
To hug once more that girl I loved
Who visits me from far above

But she is a spectre of my dreams
My ignoble suffering, my pain and though it seems
She offers paradise she offers nothing but
She is an absence, a fissure, an empty plot


Where does that ****** maiden dwell?
There is no heaven, there is no hell


There is but this moment now, this moment now


For she is gone, and take note how
She cannot suffer, but nor delight
In warm winds nor the sordid ballet of night
In songs that come from god’s own choir
Or the devils dance of deep desire


Where live your smiles, if not on my own lips?
What persistence have you, if I did not exist?


She is dead
She has ceased to be
While every moment moves in me
Her waters still, mine swarm and flow
Onwards and upwards with any dream to know


So yes I dream of death, for she is sweet
To remember why my life I keep
A toast, a cavalcade of praise and love
I send to thee up high above


But understand why, my darling friend, I cannot follow
For I still long to taste tomorrow

I see snakes and vipers in the mirror
But I see god in his reflection, and

He is so vain
That the knives he holds are flowers
He is so vain
That stabbing becomes kisses
And He is so vain
That to **** me would be suicide
While He is so vain
Bruises bloom like roses
Yet he’s so vain
Money is worth more than love
And my baby is so vain
That pain is an applause
And I don’t feel like clapping no more

I thought I’d visit the place we met
Drenched in neon, old regrets
As cougars stalk the noisesome streets
Roll out, angry sheep, sorrowful bleats
The bogan cries out to the moon
The hunchback hipsters sing of doom
The fancy dressed and terminally blessed
The puddles reflect an endless stream
Of broken hearts and wilted dreams
And the neon lights buzz proudly
Our gods, our morning stars, so loudly
Call to us like lanterns on the bows
of a thousand lost ships and broken vows
I saw you once within the sea of skin
Handsome, strong, but deep within
I knew I’d known you all my lives
As brother, lover, husband, wife
And now the caribou part their ways
To **** and fight and live their days
or perhaps to slumber, to retire
Yet I stand alone and admire
The post that held you, my darling one
Lover, absentee saint, my sun
I stare at the corner and I weep
For love itself must also sleep

Beauty in spaces
      dead echoes
            empty places
crows join hands
      old songs
fatherlands
             feathers entwined
             we dine
                  we cry inside
god lied
      these walls fall
              to the leaders
              the breeders
              the obscene feeders
empty spaces
                        master races
we all
died young

I’m waiting
Like the daughter lily before the rising dawn
Tightly wound, bound, lowered to the ground
My leaves are like iron, eyes of rust
A layering of volcanic dust
My love, what happened
Catastrophic collapse silent as the moon
Ash in every pore, wilting every bloom
And yes, my love, I’m waiting
For you to rise again and bath my world
As I am the flower, you the sun
My distant, dearest one.