Every Dead Thing
It takes me by the scruff & sits me down
Gaze here at the old red brick wall chinking
Through the frontage of the fast-food mall.
What remains of the town that fell to smoke-
Clouds during the great Sack of Yore. Close your eyes,
Smell the flesh, note the screams, the thunder of siege guns
The orchestra of an empire unloading. Look up,
The blackness still seeded in the clouds. Everywhere
I tread, valley, glen, stretch of road, I hear the stricken mother
Laden with babes, cannot talk for the grass in her mouth,
Hallucinating bread gifted by the Lord Lieutenant in his mercy.
Every field with a lone standing tree, every benchmarked house
Set below a boreen: Look here! Look here! Look here! I hear them scream.
Published by Cyphers Magazine
SIPHONAPTERA
Death today
is flung across the chopping block
desk; cheek pressed against the scrawls
of sexually-frustrated figure painters:
love hearts, Kalashnikovs, swastikas;
a thousand kind of cocks.
None, notably, pendent.
Enduring the Gross Domestic Product
of the Mezzogiorno; the bipolar nature of
water tables; Sod’s law; Plank’s Constant.
Lancing sun through wood-wormed windows;
stabbing drafts, mouseholes at my feet;
Miss with chalk dust on her nose, top of the class
a cloud of ash, reciting the one about big fleas
with little fleas upon their backs ad infinitum,
apropos of nothing.
But the way she tapped her feet
glamoured by Siphonaptera’s iambic beat
has never left me.
Published by Honest Ulsterman.
The Wonder Years
limp-wristed boy your ear is in my mouth
I am telling you the secrets of life you are
shaping like my nose is a snout I am a pig
stuck in your business my tongue blurring your
apple-eyed sketch of the world cut lawns
hedgerows April daffodils washed sheets always
on time dinners who is looking out for you
you make your first inglorious pass at her in
the library demurs what are you doing?! cry
in the toilet mirror reeking baby’s bottom
sprinkled talcum powder sneezing how now
brown cow how now droopy-eyed droopy-
lipped limb-wristed boy my hand is on your
heartbeat feel me riding your waves the heat
your blood my eau de toilette listen to me
pimples listen to me blushing blood on
the road no operation can remake your biome
suck it up words in a stew you’re good at stewing
words on paper spilling through you like sand
through your hands wake up smell the cordite on
your sleepless breath only one way the wind blows
limp-wristed boy surprise me your prowess
on the football pitch where is it when you crave
it the real world? see her again smiles a primrose
on a grey market street blinds your eyes maybe
just maybe fledge from self fallen leaf fallen angel
running to stand on tallest tree catch the rain
before she does let the lightning hit you first
let her stroll the limp-wristed ashes of your
remains limp-wristed boy your remains my
remains you are not worthy of her your shame
my name written in the rain my name I love you
no matter how long I love you the day I love you
limp-wristed boy keep us safe we burn through
atmospheres avalanching adolescence survive the crush
blush insatiate lust bum fluff Becker’s nevus trembling
lips walk the waters of the flood flood the waters
of the mind swelling out your eyes ears cock
mouth drowning as you breathe living as you
die beautiful beautiful limp-wristed boy
Published by Sentinel Literary Quarterly