A wind screams through crepuscular fingers
of white trees
chalking cryptic graffiti over flaking paint
lacquered
by the spray of waves breaking
the shoal
spits pebbles against grimy windows.

The door latches -- front and back -- rattle
the whey-faced man
sandblasts his warm and whisky breath
against the glass
over his victims’ desperate little handprints
dappled in red
sand whispers from within the basement.

The house moans.

Pathos puddles in young dimples when she raises the gun,
a teardrop reflected in Grandfather’s blurry eye.
She ***** the hammer, aligns the bullet
on the stroke of sepia midnight.

Misery, reflected in her tears when he  looks up,
ears ringing before she squeezes the trigger;
wags his tail to Grandfather’s rhythmic chime,
licks his tumour-filled belly one more time.

Like a bandit cloaked in purple and ochre camouflage,
a stale breeze slips through the window and thieves;
the last glimmer of hope kidnapped and forced
into mushroom cloud getaway cars.

Beyond empty stables, prairie grass whispers last rites,
dry and silver solemn sympathy-words
that fill the room, watercolours of life
reflected in death, as it is, in bloom.

Sharon was picking at the scab over the mole on the back of her neck
where the hairdresser had shaved too close to the skin:
Water under the bridge, she thought, and licked at her salty fingertips.

By focusing on the sound of her new high heels over the metal steps,
she blocked out twisted traffic audio below;
the wind whistled a tune through the rust over her painted toenails.

She liked the way some of the pedestrians down there looked up at her.
Sharon felt so elegant when the wind lifted her skirt,
just like Marilyn Monroe in that picture, except that Sharon didn’t smile;

her skirt had been lifted up more times than she could (or wanted to) remember.
He always looked down at her. There. Below.
Sharon flicked her new purse into the wind, and ripped off the matching blouse.

The Samurai sword, tight between her *******, felt hot and cold at the same time,
like the red of her peach blossom skirt glistening white against midday sun;
memories of her only child freeze-burned the empty love caverns in her heart.

A river of emotions rippled through her body but she didn’t utter a sound;
that was reserved for the impact with the oncoming bus,
and the tip of the sword that ripped through the driver’s leather-sandaled heart.

The fifth day took a turn for the worst:
a sand shark swallowed three scouts,
protective glasses and all;
one second they were there,
the next
regurgitated bones pushed up from under the dune.

Uncle Mohammed picked up two kids,
one under each arm, like sacks,
and rolled down the rocky side
where the predator doesn’t hunt;
the beast
devoured two more women, and blasted out of the dune.

Its body shadow-blocked the Sun,
and irony engraved itself
on the travelers’ foreheads
in the form of twisted frowns—
a mix
of silence for the dead and for shade on the dune.

An utterance of names echoed
within a heat-waved skyline.
Accounting for the dead
proved tougher than expected:
no-one
answered, except for the vultures circling the dune.

The journey was harder than expected,
a struggle;
the sky spoke in dragon tongue,
and sand gnawed away at the skin,
grating to pulp those sensitive regions of the body.

Disaster struck on the third night in the desert;
a child
who’d been walking with the scouts,
and of whom every-one had been fond of,
slipped through a crevice in the mountain side.

They spent the better half of the early morning
picking
at the gangrenous green flesh
protruding from within fissure fangs,
swollen fingers of rot and despair that reeked of death.

Before they knew it, the dunes had shifted;
disgruntled
by their own negligence,
they packed up and loaded the camels.
The child’s parents remained and prayed for a miracle.

The caravan held two minutes’ silence.

The vultures
didn’t give a flying ****,
skipped miraculous death rehearsal,
and hot-shadow-torpedoed mother, father, and trapped daughter.

The Sun oozed mustard-pus and black blood,
so perceived
by those who didn’t have time
to ****** their protective goggles and
Go!

The government troops had been onto them in a flash.

There’s a dry voice that chokes;
a sandy tongue that grates dust-vowels over chipped-blue lips,
explosive puffs that cause the heart to race,
from somewhere behind the cherry wood bookcase.

Let the flames do the talking – keep that fire stoked.
Hold your breath and pray he won’t come stalking,
for his teeth are geared with gold-sneer,
and they rip through bone to the beat of tortured soul-fear.

Never make eye-cont—

In his left hand a discarded, crumpled page – the letters broken and twisted,
his name rearranged to spell out the victim’s, yours;
the author who thought it ‘wise’ to exclude him from the last ‘bestseller’ –
King’s had a run-in, and so, maybe, has Heller.

act! Your feet are frozen to t—

An utterance of disapproval as he drags himself across the floor planks,
a crust of dust where his nostrils should be flaring,
a gob of phlegm on the chin as he turns
and slaps himself on a limp leg that drags behind like a heavy shadow.

he spotted you! Grab—

The harsh noise of nails scraping over the floor’s drawing closer,
as is the groaning of painful sighs with each heave –
splinters in open sores on a right hand that’s swollen green,
yet strong enough to clutch tight

*the letter opener!

Only step on light-coloured paving slabs;
there are gaping voids under the darker ones
filled with a twisted-mustard fog made up of cut-off hands, heads, and genitals
that *****, **** and squirt foul-smelling, luminous goo all over you
as you go down, down, down –
your screams will fall on deaf ears, and your voice will drown you;
your voice will be your downfall.

Never sleep with a gun under your pillow;
someone you love might annoy you in the slightest – and vice versa –
nightmares are so much more frightening when they become reality.
You will cry, cry, cry
(your cries won’t be heard if you swallow a bullet first, of course),
and cleaning the corners, where the Witness Spiders sneer, is a *****.

Never sleep with a book under your pillow;
you might wake up thinking Wow, what a beautiful day,
not knowing that you’ve been ****** into one of the author’s stories –
leaked from his pen, though not inked;
the fleeting thought of a madman
who dreams about writing a bestseller on family murders.
You will scrub, scrub, scrub.

Avoid reading silly poetry about superstitions;
the words might be those of a madman who writes with a cheap pen,
the ink spilled all over the page on purpose.

The winded willow wailed,
and the wild flowers hung on every sigh of the tree’s weathered leaves.
The shed door yawned each time he raised the axe;
blade-on-bark gave him a fractional sense of ‘being there’,
and a wry smile — thin, like dawn’s frost-moustache on the Chevy’s windshield —
shaped his lips into worn wiper blades,
which stifled the sound of his teeth chipping away at winter’s breath.

A flutter of wings,
and a flurry of feathers
when the hush of a kimono
– broken-blossomed and torn at the seams –
drag over and **** up morning dew’s silver secrets,
only to be picked up by Sun’s golden fingers,
and woven into fabrications
glittering in the reflection
of a hand fan blade.

They come for her in red and blue
ambulance lights disco dancing fragmented beats,
purple intent drumming against flaking graffiti art on the garage door;
aerosol skeletal rose garden shadows cower
under twist-rust razor wire
fencing
in the flowerbed graveyard strewn with dogs’ delights—
there is neither bark nor howl,
those sounds echo deep within the basement walls;
lumps of meat a’thudder,
twisted growls
for the boy, Timothy,
which both Rottweilers had been fond of as well.
Until the very end.

Neighbourhood eyes scowl,
wide-eyed middle-aged pyjama-children
fresh from midnight escapades;
arms folded tight,
everyone glares at her night-stained blood dress,
and the dogs’ heads held high above her pretty head,
revenge-trophies served lukewarm
on a school night against the backdrop of suburbia
crying
under ambulance sirens’
apocalyptic announcement regarding Amy:
had she not answered that phone call and left little Timmy unattended,
she might still have been able to hold him in her arms.
Until the very end.

A can o' beans on a red suitcase,
Christ,
it must be Judgement Day;
even the sky feels empty,
even the shadows seem robbed of their coolness,
so I leave'em there,
the empti tyn and the ruid sedcase baking in the ympty ske
and I crush them *******' dark lenses under my boots,
Lord,
and I walk on down that dusty-blue road.

Outside’s dressed up in 3am fishnets;
shooting star suspenders
(woven from strands of God’s silver *****)
crisscross cobwebs over pre-dawn’s mouth,
ready to go down,
trap,
and **** the joy right out of youth.

Yawn.

Stretch.

Wait.

At the sound of the pigeons scratching in the gutters, we both looked up;
your eyes the size of noodle bowls,
my stomach aflutter.
When the first big drops fell, the pigeons took flight,
you wrapped your arms around my legs,
and I bent down to hold you tight.
The front door sheet metal canopy was soon spattering its own language,
but you seemed to understand;
you told me to bolt the lock,
took me by the hand, and showed me the way to the miscellaneous drawer,
Get some candles, you said; your words not yet cold
when the weather took our electricity.
A delightful giggle escaped your mouth as I struck the last soggy match;
you sang Happy Birthday to me!
while the fifth candle was hissing to life.
I burnt my fingers, and a rogue gust of wind took all the flames;
I saw you in a different light
while darkness was juggling with my sight:
that angelic face hovering in front of my eyes,
only for an instant before being painted over,
layered in the colours of all life’s essentials,
which will eventually shape you, some – along the way – break you,
no more could I see your beautiful smile;
a toothless old woman was staring back at me.

Daddy, you whispered with honest concern in your voice,
Is that you? You look so old, Daddy?

I didn’t answer. I couldn't.

A storm was brewing.

In my chest.

Through a haze that was part breath, part exhaust fumes,
he peered up through the holes in the corrugated iron bus stop canopy,
and imagined—in the swirl of yet another motor-oil morning sky—
the rise and fall of green hills,
the aroma of fresh soil released from within the essence of decomposing leaves,
exhaled only by the breaths of creatures that roam the depths of the earth.

He picked at the dead skin under his wrist watch,
and decided that was exactly where he should be heading—to the hills,
or the depths of the earth, perhaps—whichever came first on the path
he’d been struggling to find for so long.

Rainbow dirt-puddles rippled to the drone of his approaching seven O’clock bus;
he zipped up his top, adjusted his goggles, and lit the fuse.

Dusk’s last breath puff up the curtains
in a flash of the post traumatic kind.
A crocheted-cliché, peach-purple duvet
drape the mountains in war paint;
redwood generals’ shadows on attention,
disorderly pine infantrymen struggle
against the wind,
some broken,
most wounded,
shattered limbs on display.

The war hero sighs into the bowels
of an instant noodles cup; dumplings shiver
((uncooked liver)) when he whistle-whispers
untold stories of courage,
guts served on blood-soaked battlegrounds;
no-one listens,
save spiders
with hairy legs
that hang on his every word.

The Devil popped ‘round for a visit last night;
the donkey he came in on was undersized,
and Nick’s heels (bleeding and cracked to the bone)
were scraping over the burnt rice stubble
in such a way that my beard itched.

His banjo growled unearthly melodies;
he chipped a nail while strumming those rusty strings,
and his eyes (never did they make contact)
were examining the core of my soul
in such a way that my heart bled.

I pulled away and opened a window,
felt hesitation rippling through her body
as she let out a sigh that warmed my back.
The bed draped in a blanket of silence;
I’d seen the Devil in her eyes.

I should’ve worn the other dress,
the red one with the ****** zip;
he’s not looking at my brooch,
Christ,
his gaze is disappearing into my cleavage—
Cleavage.
What … distasteful language,
as if God had picked up an axe
and struck me right between the ****.

She placed her fork on the plate,
picked up the menu once again,
and pretended to study the desserts.

I should’ve worn my glasses;
these contacts are killing me.
Has a piece of broccoli just—?
****!
She must think I’m staring at her *******.
I’m not.
I swear on my mother’s grave
a piece of broccoli’s just dropped down—
Ooh. That’s a stunning piece of jewelry.*

He took a sip of Sauvignon blanc,
studied the restaurant logo on the menu in front of him,
and ordered another bottle of wine.

On the first day I learned how to spell my name,
‘h’ included,
Daddy knocked on my bedroom door and let himself in—
I was six
when he planted the evil seed inside of me.
It’s been growing ever since.

Mommy told me to go to sleep with the Bible
under my pillow,
dabbing at her swollen face, pink paisley hanky in hand.
Uncomfortable
(the Bible-pillow, that is; after a while I couldn’t care less
about Mommy’s bleeding nose).

She said Jesus listened to everyone’s sorrows,
children’s first,
that there was no need to tell anyone— He could read thoughts.
Impressive,
I thought, for a guy who’d been through a helluva lot himself,
being crucified and all that.

Daddy told Mommy not to make up ******* fairytales,
that there’s no way
Jesus remained on the cross for as long as he did,
Pah! he said,
they didn’t have superglue in those days, you dumb *****!
Mommy said Yes-Yes, and shut her trap.

Mommy traded in her sanity for the bottle
Daddy fed her.
I stole Daddy’s shotgun and walked over to the Owens’,
where I threatened
to shoot little Jason, then aged five, if he didn’t lick me
up and down in front of his mother.

I’ve come a long way, and rumor has it there’s a price
on my little head,
that they had found Daddy’s ***** bones in the well
twelve years to the day—
but I’ve come to realize that this heart was made to ****;
I’ll polish my shotgun and wait.

There is not a sign of a silver lining
for there is not a cloud in the sky.
Midnight-moon illuminates shimmer-shivers
(and black-lit blood blotches)
over the frame of a skeletal shopping trolley,
which,
being pushed by a strong Southeaster,
limp-strolls over an empty supermarket car park
where angels and daemons do drug deals.

The moon looked brighter underwater,
so she decided to stay in a little longer;
from her nose bubbled the birth of a solar system,
over her goggles rose the sun,
and in her ears algae aliens whispered:
*Rise, sister, and come down with us.

It’s Tuesday again—not a clue what the date is.
It’s Tuesday.


A tikka curry is simmering on the stove.
There’s no wine in my paper cup (I used it in the food).
A refill it is, then— not too much— leave some for the guest;
nobody likes a drunken host.

I set the table:
two spoons (my guest insists),
two bowls (he’s messy),
a roll of toilet paper (he’s got style).

The elevator doors open—
I know this because they make an annoying choo-eet, choo-eet sound,
and I’ve been living in this ******* apartment
for longer than I can remember.

Footsteps echo through the corridor—
Oh, I’m so excited when he visits!
Even the little cows on the kitchen curtains are smiling.
Hope he enjoys the curry.

The doorbell rings twice – such an impatient little man,
but I do so enjoy his company.
I open the door and give him a hug;
he whispers in my ear, *Good evening, me.

It takes some time to make sense of his surroundings;
the bright light,
the cold floor tiles.
An empty tequila bottle floats into focus—
not that it makes any sense to him whatsoever
(tequila bottles don’t operate that way).
There’s a shot glass and first aid kit on the floor,
salt shaker,
meat cleaver.

It doesn’t take long to realize things had gotten out of hand;
he’s in cuffs,
she in fits and giggles.
He looks up at the underside of the kitchen table—
a blade of some sort is scraping over the Formica top.

Her legs are covered in badly-dressed wounds,
a hundred open mouths French-kissing
Betadine brown bandages.

He closes his eyes and asks for forgiveness,
prays that there’ll be love in her violence.

Forgiveness comes in the form of an axe,
and all the love she had for him
he’d beaten out of her.

The weight in her soul
filled her stomach like a sack of rocks;
bills to pay
mouths to feed
prayers to say.

She cracked a bottle,
there, on the other side of the tracks
where cat ****
and Bibles
smell the same.

The Seven O’ Five
rattled the windows in their frames;
time for smoke
time for drink
time for dope.

The baby cried twice,
once of cold, and once for her mama
who had left
in a flash
overdose.

Standing by the window, Polaroid in hand,
he stared out at the hubcap rolling in the sand;
now the screen door, she was whistelin’ a sad and lonely tune,
and the ******* dogs, they were barkin’ at the moon.

Midnight roared and the sky came apart at the seams.
He looked up and saw where Jesus hides his dreams;
they were glitterin' gold, and blinkin' purple-pink—
he was sure the little girl in the picture winked.

Like an upside-down stage curtain, steam rises
over a half-empty cup of ginger tea,
obscuring the dreary view of yet another rainy day.
The woman leans closer to the window
(she’s certain there’ll be an oily stain where her nose
makes contact with the icy glass).

Raindrops are mutating over cracks in the window,
their shadows filling in the blank
blotches in her eyes, camouflaging the liver spots
(themselves otherworldly mutants)
over her hands— sewerage on plumbers’ gloves.
She drinks her tea and whimpers his name.

Scalpel-blade shivers creep over her back,
over the folds in her pantyhose;
chalk marks on the road become visible—
she remembers it like yesterday
when she cradled his broken body in her arms:
police car and ambulance sirens

conjured a dust devil that reeked of young death;
it clung to her designer clothes,
and complemented the purple stench of brake fluid,
petrol, and the god-awful breaths
of bystanders who’d gathered like a swarm of flies,
the soft susurrus of their conversations

intensifying till pencil-lipped, beast-like groans,
ready to feed on the hole in her soul,
salivating to take a bite of grief, and replace it with remorse;
she recalls the sound of her car keys
on the hot tar, which took a chomp out of her left knee,
and warm blood seeping into her every fibre.

Steam and chalk marks fade away into the past.
In front of the refrigerator,
on the grimy vinyl kitchen flooring, a ginger meows;
the woman ignores its pleas,
and reaches for the upside-down picture on the window sill.
A liver spot sprouts from her neck.

It’s the hour before traffic,
around that time when the paperboys
sniff, all of them rubbing their noses on sleeves.

The smog is fowl,
a stray dog howls
orange explosions of bitter pain
through which the sun battles to make a comeback.

Amber lights
flash
right of way
for
whoever’s driving home from the pub,
whoever’s daft enough to face the day
that way.

The last ******* packs her bag,
stubs out her ***
and zips her **** shut,
‘A fat cow like me can only wait for so long.’

Soon the sky is Usual Blue,
discoloured by security swipes,
fake handshakes,
and Columbia’s finest

coffee-stained
coffee shop waiters
who sell the finest sugar cube coke
to those hardworking folk
who keep our nation ticking,

and tocking –
the digital clock,
my rooster with the fraudulent eyes,
tells me it’s time to let the snooze button go.

An explosive sizzle over the tarmac,
and through the cracks in the windscreen
(which spread like invisible spiders' webs),
the highway snakes through the hailstones,
and climbs yet another hill.

Townes’ voice sounds thirsty on the FM,
the eyes in the rearview lost, doodled-upon road maps
(clichéd with just a tad of Cabernet Sauvignon);
the driver leans over, pops the cubbyhole,
and yet another pink pill.

Telephone wires vibrate like ocean ripples
with the last cries of ravens that rose like a black tsunami,
‘parting the sea’ for the speeding hearse,
and casting cancer-shadows over the land
with each flap of their wings.

A crackle and hiss as Sun’s fingers scraped over the curtains;
here and there bookshelf dust sighed — of this he was certain.
Feet up on the whiskey-stained table,
he smiled back at the four week old mud grins
on the toes of his boots.

A snap of his fingers and the Zippo lighter flamed to life —
he lit a cheroot, watching as the smoke draped his fingers,
watching the cat on the window sill
curl itself into a ball, stealing
all of morning’s secrets.

A black house spider crawled over the rip in his jeans;
the man ****** his knee back, and tilted his felt cap —
each word he spoke was covered in smoke
as he welcomed the little fella,
and cursed the world outside.

Insomnia came knocking on my door at half-past three.
The Angel of Death had long passed out,
fishnets tight around her throat,
a ***** needle dangling from just below the knee;
the Tooth Fairy was trading milk teeth for *****
on the corner of Fear and Doubt
with a nervous gentleman who had a head like a goat.

Insomnia knocked three times, and let herself in,
tatty robes behind her like torn leather,
scraping over cold tiles, over my skin;
sweet lullabies oozed over her chapped lips
in a voice as old as dry weather,
a storm of emotions conjured, a concoction
of cold blood, sour grapes, and bad trips.

Insomnia stayed the night, stretched out on my bed,
told me to write something nice about her,
or the curve of her armpits instead;
I can’t, I said, they’re dreadlocked in fur,
so I crawled in next to her, put my head on her breast.
A sigh of satisfaction moistened her lips,
*There, there, deary, lets take a rest.

Olives and bullets,
buses loaded with young guns -
Shalom and goodbye.

Angie works the alleys that reek of greasy sausages and ****,
where beer-bellied men appear
and vanish into doorway varnish of invisible rooms,
spitting on their own doorsteps, stubby fingers
running over stained vests and wire wool guts.

Harry lives out yonder where plastic bags’ ballet shoes are made of glue;
he is sharing a hit
with a dreadlocked kid, just another invisible face,
a phantom-surfer nurse, to assist him in
chasing the ultimate high on highway number twenty-two.

Invisible, hairy hands hold her down; Angie has to swallow,
she can feel the pulsating vein
of a softening **** over her tongue and swollen lips –
she gives it a good old slap against her cheek,
grabs the package, and makes sure no one follows.

Harry’s clawing at a face in that place where reality floats
between the tip of the needle
and the desperate edge of chemical dependency -
his little angel taps him on the shoulder;
he turns around, and stabs her in the throat.

At the crack of dawn the rusted screen door hinges squealed;
he placed his hands on the push handles,
and shifted his weight forward.

Front wheels, up!

The bare rear-wheel rims scarred the mahogany threshold,
and the seat cushion squeaked a little louder
under her almost-dead weight.

Cusco! *******!

Like every other morning for the last thirteen years
the old retriever gave him a blank stare,
its glass eye bleedin’ blue.

Hold on, Edna.

They made a quick one-eighty ‘round the dog’s empty food bowl,
avoided one of the craters in the floorboards,
and came to a halt on the landing.

We’re almost there, dear.

Edna did her morning wheelie down the porch steps.
The liver spots on her hands seemed larger
in the early morning rays.

Here we go, Edna!

The wheels sank away and whispered over the lawn;
the birds stopped chirping as if they listened,
and the river birch waved good mornin’.

Almost there, now.

They passed the birch and pulled up under the apricot tree;
the blossoms’ shadows danced her to sleep,
and her oxygen tank hissed blue ******.

*There, there, darling.

The hinges creak closing time.

The library door slams,
and the key—a rusted Peeping Tom—
clicks its metal tongues, and exhales disappointment
at having to leave so soon;
a puff of dust

from within the lock,
through the keyhole, and over Luna’s fingers
stretched out on the counter, paging through the late returns;
pages whisper, windows rattle
at the wind’s wailing:

*‘The show’s about to begin.’

From a fifth storey bachelor’s window
pondering shadows in the car park below,
Johnny opens another can.
I stuff another pipe.

We talk about our trip to Brazil
and how great it would’ve been had we gone;
Johnny turns up the radio.
I take the first drag.

Old girlfriends swing by in our conversation,
most of them giving us the finger, mind you;
Johnny dabs at his tears.
I pass him the pipe.

Dusk-scalpels are slicing through the curtains now,
they scrape over coffee table dust,
through Irish coffee stains,
cut open Johnny’s frown:

The neighbours are at it again, arguing;
he accuses her of seeing someone else,
she tells him correct,
it’s your ****** sister.

Johnny taps out the pipe in the ashtray,
says he has to do someone a favour;
throws on his jacket,
says take it easy.

Johnny’s shadow tiptoes into evening,
a car alarm screams and a gunshot cries.
I convince myself
this is Brazil.