A world in colour lies
semi-distant, semi realised,
A near-forgotten future exsanguinates, yearning
in the weakened glow, of infinite winter morning.
The voice, the voices, the voiceless, my anger, my age,
Pan-millennial youth in coming years will fade,
It will carry duvet and pillow from hateful home
to halfway-house until half way home
It will make all its hearts into the shape of cardboard,
blemish the fire with chemical ****, **** hard,
It will seek forgiveness at the steps of screen,
beat asthmatic chests, fingers, ribs and seams,
It will see itself cower in the horrible light of mirror,
sail to the sun on wings of fakes lashes,
And it will burn, burn not in forgiving hangover sodium,
but burn in the eye of a guilt yet to come,
And it will drown, drown at the blessing of the water,
drown at its birth time and time over,
And it will wound, wound in scythe and cushion comfort,
wound the waking dream in Siamese horror of sorts,
And it will leave strangled in the cords of its university hoody,
leave alone at night, touch itself and cry.
Bursting rhythm from the panopticon, viewing all aspects
of itself engulfed in ex-disney coloured acid
spewing forth from the desired wreck,
Hurtling profound and profane into and beyond
******* and love and love and *******,
*****-tinged snows lubricating seasons onward into each other,
Gut-busting, gut-busting, gut-busting societal downpour to harridan office
from liquor dormitory, escaping and elevating
on citalopram or selegiline,
The surgeons and nurses, the poets and builders, ever restless
at the unbolted door, screaming into their unread palms,
comparing varying hell to holy water lakes of others,
Sipping the dew from paradise wing, discontent with all
in purgatory-England whilst licking the knee
of America and imagined Europe,
Wanking itself dry at the lottery of thought,
crude reckonings spiralling sugar into salt
landing on the tongue of want,
Feeling crucified at the Atheist tea party,
climbing the cross of trend
supplying own milk and nails,
Unwanting in the chrysalis, ignoring coming candles
but fantasising a thousand symmetrical suns
to limited avail and idea.
But idea there will be, birthed, blood-hungry
gnawing at the heel ‘til bare bone,
And it will rip apart fat riddled arteries,
Deconstruct, Reconstruct all the bodies and the cites,
And it will write and spell all the words wrong
realising that what ‘they’ are selling is sign language for the blind,
And it will note of itself as harsh but not unkind,
reject bribe bread and water be it divided or divined,
And it will say of cartography “No need as of yet,
I have seen men lost in the lining of a suit,
Crying into their shoes, uncombed, unfettered, unfertilised, without hope,
after laughing into empty lakes.”
We can each say “My God, my empty sky, my cartoon prophet, my local MP,
I have seen everything and want none of it,
I am alone in a narrow shape of time,
watching us all unfurl to the scent of burning feathers and hair,
to the sound of punctured veins.”
We watch silent litanies for graceful pardons of filth,
in “Amen” then nothing,
We watch our age’s world rend lung
through hollow cheeks and air in our bones,
We watch ourselves into eyes or no eyes at all
watch ourselves read last lines and then
watch ourselves realise and whimper
from ulcerated gut, tongue or pen,
the everlasting knell…
“…And it will happen again…”