A Walking Mess of Wire

Each kick of heels in dust
along the linament smelling valley floor
bring the lizards erotica to peak;
boulder grey, throbbing waves
rising behind a wire grin mask.
Ferment the nettle fever in glass manacles
as belts tighten around delicate stems
and songs drown under fingertips.
Such is being sincerely macabre
when raptures rise in suffocation.

Emotionless as sights of cruelty descend,
eager for suffering
baptized in sex and the foul;
tools of death almost jump from their grip
as lambs wander into a webby path.
Murder dynamics
sending dragons into Love and joys
while the artery red kingfisher
skulks within pecking distance of the morgue...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Tell My Child

Tell my child if I am not to live
my spirit is here always ready to give -

a comforting cwtch when Life turns cold
from a crystal cove where Love is sold.

Or an honest word when lies abound
to walk with grace over thorny ground.

Tell my child on those linament nights
that her fevers pass through healing lights.

And when she weeps as people must
to bury doubt and lay with trust.

Be not afraid to touch on death
where you will thrive with every breath.

Ignore the slights from jealous lips
and their bitter souls in a lonely grip.

Oh wondrous gib, oh child of mine
shun the snakes who trust in wine.

And guard against those solemn pews
with paper hearts that lie to you.

But I need not worry or dent the sky
because you were brewed by an oracle eye...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

The Hook Flurries

Metallic coils choke heated fronds,
from breastbone to hollow teeth
where pittance in sands are measured,
death is welcomed as the hams are cooked.
No slivers of fear sweep the eyelids
as kidney plates turn daffodil soft;
crossbone strikes settling in sinkholes
where dogs of moderation are skinned
in favour of lust and avarice.
Gravity pulls the cannibal babes
to their filthy cots but sleep however fancy
always a stubborn bolt away.

Curious freckles simmer on catfish jowls
pricking the glass shell
like stars burning on the edge of space,
breathless icons kept from us.

Beggar at the night scriptures;
silence reigns as crowned eagles unravel
the spring works of Life,
taking hook eyed beasts down into sacrament pits
while frail sons set their fins to knuckle music.
Suffer,
suffer in the depths
eager for refuge in needle arbours...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

To Bethena

I missed your love and kindness,
your soul of souls,
but beauty with its assorted delinquents and trinkets
never fades or wilts,
and 'tho I nest amongst adders in the dawn
I am at the gentle mercy of you always.
Those eyes, that smile,
a face which had all the answers
and hangs forever, a portrait in my chest.
Oh to have known you darling Bethena!
To have held your hand
and walked with you, both poets on fire,
a furious blaze all together smothering the page.

I gaze into your eyes, those chessnut pools
and know what might have been
is happening now in the emerald garden
where your delicate touch is freezing the furies.
Bethena! Gone before your time
but time itself will be your tribute
as those you Love remember you,
and this ode, testament of your inspiration
which reshaped the horizons of a distant hand.
Oh to have known you!
But content am I to know that you live on,
triumphed over crocodiles
and sending Love in butterflies...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

If It Was Cyanide

If that button over there
were cyanide,
I would pop it on my tongue
and go out with the tide.

Or if my nails were as sharp
as an icy cutlass,
I could draw them down my veins
to disappear like gas.

I want beans and everything
to simply be cyanide,
lethal edging
for my earthy hide...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Sin & Danger

Clock hands shaped like sniper rifles
clicked soundly to futures
where vandals tresspass shilling malls
and rictus grins increase mania.
We are drowning families,
family drowned,
animals in weakened packs
hunting jams and spirits,
spirit jam.

Bruised cheeks bold as the rising sun
turn to face bottles and daggers
as Jewy nosed crooks run their creepy show,
make no mistake in dangerous dens.
In riots and order,
ordered riots
we rampage through electric cities,
city rampage.

And pearl handled razors are shelved pretty;
blades polished by mortuary wax
prepared for the shredding,
stood in saluted awe to misery.
The mad love crazes
crazy mad,
revving engines of violence,
violent revs.

New dawns arise from volcanic dents,
tiny sequels to the sunshine monsters
who ravage knitted bosoms
in liveries of spangled gore.
The smiles of infants
infant smile,
born alive and dying
dead alive...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Mother Gallows

We shall bring back the gallows
some day;
when guns rob for bullets
and bullets have souls
we will bring back the gallows
one day.

We will bring back the noose
some day;
when machete toothed pike
plunder ghost still ponds
we shall bring back the noose
one day.

We will bring back the scaffold
some day;
as murder cysts spread
in sanctuary cities
we will bring back the scaffold
one day.

We shall bring back hemp collars
one day;
when witches trick poets
into beds of blood
the rope will revive its knot
one day...

@Steven Francis poems 2010