Saturday 29 August 2009

Snake Relish/Star Dust

The powerful
walk over,
vagrants kiss,
babies vomit
and graffiti stains.
Ladies skip
girls flaunt,
drunks scrape
and waltz,
whilst madmen kick.
Teenagers spit
murderers run,
the penniless search
and fat boys thunder.
Perverts hunt
corpses hug,
showers suffocate
as the sun curdles.
Onward to horizons
and dislocated trolleys...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Friday 28 August 2009

Puddle Chops

The bathroom mirror sees within
a hoarde of ghosts
beneath the skin.
Keen asylum for kinks and creases
battered reflection
in a hundred pieces.

Sober glass upon the wall
confess to me
the sins of all.
Gentlemen and ladies dare
to spill perversions
when you are there.

Secret host of many masks
guide razors on
their hungover tasks.
Hide all wrinkles without trace
bring to life
a haggard face.

Young and old in front of thee
as naked as
a willow tree.
Frame the pose over soapy sinks
beautiful image
on a frozen rink.

Loyal stamp on wizened pages
life in chapters
on shiny stages.
Darkest wishes shared in colour
a different face
on every hour...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Bloodology

A parliment of howling dragons
seek sanctuary in flesh,
warm is good
when everything is at end.
And it is,
nothing remains but leftovers;
of madness
of friendship,
all good has gone
like it never was.
Fields without life
song with no heart
and playgrounds rusted into heavy soil,
children long disappeared
into offices and hangovers.
Mercy be to memories
that ignite a fleeting comfort
for wanderers to shelter
when grave wax becomes sweet.
Everything has fled now,
dreams have grown whiskers and claws
to protect and disguise on harsh roads.
The insane have sobered up,
attitudes been harnessed,
nothing is left of lust...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Thursday 20 August 2009

Funeral Mad

Black is all

all dirt,

rat pitch in soul tar.

Dark corners

corner all,

shrouded ribs in glass shadow.

Cold in mourning

bittersweet the memory song,

love hard

until the day folds.

Tanned eyes

milk lips,

beyond the veil

on bat lung horizon.

The dead are not

burning stars,

or satisfied in stone.

In the ground

the maggot is king…



@Steven Francis poems 2009

Perhaps (Hopefully)

People can live in worlds unknown

as long as death machines

stay out of sight,

and grim pulses of fear

jerk our footsteps.

Grains of salt

freshen the nerves,

awake

all we are,

earned a page of breath

with a small word of gratitude

to the king Huntsman…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Leaving Earth To Play A Zombie

No tan for lepers,

the skin has gone on holiday

leaving blood to froth

over gums,

and fall sickly onto the breastbone

weak as fish scales.

Past life, loves

and mistakes

cling like graffiti to well chewed frame.

Flesh is fine for mourning,

a real tent for umpteen miseries

to shelter from time and touch.

The honest look of Man

in the empire of Death…


@Steven Francis poems 2009

Boulder Mists

There is too much noise

in silence,

lots of havoc being played

on empty plains,

damage done in hours.

And every second

pulls a different greedy chops.

Imagination HQ,

too fertile a canvas

for quiet to remain intact.

The solitary of ghosts

in death responses,

a cruel kingdom resting

on the shoulders of shepards…



@Steven Francis poems 2009

Bambi Inspired A Marshmallow Gut for Jelly Children

Jellyfish do the hickory dance

while pirates save the world

from hell.

Cats whisper to the slain

that death is life,

and we superheroes

come to kill the upset once again.

In cartoon surburbia

inspiration fails the zombies

and the dizzy soft.

Shame on them,

to have such open mouths

and abuse the freedom

by trembling…



@Steven Francis poems 2009

The Zero Angels

The sun is running early
on the a.m,
already there are violent shadows
on the edge of my hangover
bringing the Fear back.
Out of a greasy coma I fall
to be surrounded with Life.
The dull bits
the sharp bits,
the bits I choke on
and bang my head on.
The funny bits I use for comfort
and the rest that wear me down.

A new dawn with the same miserable jabs
as yesterday,
and as the calendar gets thinner
bad habits hurt longer,
but without pain there is nothing.
Every day I stretch both liver and heart,
one to cover nagging wails
the other to plug the scars.
There’s no end to it,
a relentless hail of morbid pictures
filling my kindergarden shoes.

I see the Black in black
and blood on white,
even smiles in shades of grey.
But here in this inked canvas
which drapes over my skeleton
like warts on fish,
I see only dirt scenes.
The shreds of life
where bullets shape honesty
and lovebites twist
into heroin scabs.
Not all fun
not all romance,
but princes were made from less…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Giant In A Teacup (Megladon)

Forcing power with palms,

eating halo’s filled with bone.

Shower under fingernail and muscle

the sin of man

becomes obvious,

under the pigment of the subtle.

We know no heroes

in shame of flags.

The giant swallows the earth

of the hellbent,

we stand tall

in the terror mouth…



@Steven Francis poems 2009

War (Is My Sheppard)

War is my shepard
blood gifts are what I want.
To lay my enemy down amongst lepers
and madness groves,
filling them with bitter infusions.
In sun waters they repent
there is no freedom for the senseless.
In the shadow of the bark
of cereberus,
I walk guided by red pulses,
beating beneath barbed cysts.

My laments strip the skin
from my tormentors,
and boil their livers in saliva.
My spite be their agony,
vengeance for their unholy tongue.
My veins be the noose around their spirit;
in damnation be annointed.

Surely courage will follow me
throughout trial and temptation,
and victory shall rise
from the pyres of eagles.
And no more bone
shall my enemy have left to sin upon,
no more thirst for evil.
I walk through columns of golden oils
never to be scarred,
into the heart of wisdom fields
and virtue…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Of Yellow Balconies and Danger

Stirred by flame
splashed with sandshine,
boiled rocks
across fanged wastes.
Navy patch tassled with
eyes of old,
merry the waltz
over opera.
Poison the power
of the worm head.
Walk on glass naked colossus,
Medusa has you stitched…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Hedonist & Sasquatch

May weather brings lambs
to daisy hems,
sunshine twists on bracelets
like pond skaters skipping over trout.
Afternoon ice cream
jellybeans on cheeks,
there is no cauldron more glorious or alive
than a river in Spring gloss.
Streak of light
putting ghosts in cribs
and nudging lurking shadow into the mouth
of Venus.

Frosted glasses of plum wine
spill over hampers of mutton and berries,
as damsels in undress grope in barns
like excited lizards on railway sleepers.
Neither bully nor Death
has a page in this scene;
jam scones on a Sunday teatime
swat the hammerheads into gasoline coma.
Dried mud paths lead to a
mullet brown harbour,
where chip shops and plastic buckets
turn the air into a potent fog,
pickled lungs never been so glad
tho’ never as full as memories eye.
Those furnace fields still ablaze
long after the gates fell.
Western man in a painting
from the East…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Clock Press On Overdose

The badgers run
under the columns of thunder,
scattering once light falls
onto artery gashes.
Gold chokeholds and blunt teeth
turn ketamine from troughs
into baby meat;
cider ignites deep roots.
Blind from clingfilm
and studded skin,
a dragon hunts the pit
for blazes.
Rotor blades turn to straw
as candy anthems fight for space.
There be tigers
always,
in bottle green forests;
grey cartoons alive
on marble flesh,
we bloodied figures always sink the ill…

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Rain & Oil

Clouds tip their ball bearings into the clockwork

and as steel falls into laps of scarecrows

hurrying to their stretch,

engines rev lifting smoggy fumes of cities

into the peace land.

Water raising oil

to the chin of sleeping cubs,

framing windows of cluttered horizons

onto walls of wild woodland.

Iron scenes riding on the diesel

cutting through haybarns,

pulling on the tail of the free walkers.

Busy scents ransack nostrils

bury streetlight in the mud…



@Steven Francis poems 2009

In Crayon: Cemetery

And the chaos beats you to it
cobwebbed pictures make it real.
Deathly dying and the dead
there’s a defiance to it
falling into soil.
Graveyard summer
holiday of worms,
there is fever in the bones tonight
we sick,
we merry sick…

@Steven Francis poems 2009