The Swansea Devil

Perched above the busy masses
Old Nick looks down,
grinning like a coyote,
inspiring arched eyebrows
and pimpled tongues in the labeled herd,
satisfied his court be full.
As glad he was when St Mary's burned
in the three night blitz
of old Swansea town.
Sit firm devil,
listen to the drinkers song
and fish slapped sounding feet of visitors,
a relic of legend
brewed from bitter hands,
smile from your lofty sanctuary...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

A Death Mask

Often I lay with frog spawn eyes
staring at balls of space;
a hammered tattooed pig hulk
in ruffled bedclothes,
sunshine billowing
the silence,
posing, me dead to world.
An overdosed globule
catching bats
with granite cladded mouth,
my tongue tolling
for soft dew
and guillotine hymns.
I play dead before regal mourning begins in earnest,
a wick for the spirit into oils
of rigor mortis -
until air falls back into my lungs
and I suck,
a pull on the death
that keeps me alive...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Grain. In Sullen Memory.

A photograph in the news
breaks through a cacophony of headlines
putting a name to death again,
as forks shriek to halt
reminding everyone
that they are dead.
The face eerily alone
amongst cuckoos and sulpherous roses -
frozen, smiling in happier times
while fog closes in to blur the saintly sheen.
Another sand memory
forcing teatime to turn sombre
in the midst of beans, sweet tea
and bacon rind.
A body to mourn
under the shovels beak...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Amlosgfa

Through Autumn trees
like rusted pinheads
we roll
on glitter cider swells,
from the trough -
the amlosgfa,
where cocaine carcasses
take us to tables
of the saints.
Hellish hounds shall cower
at sincere hearts,
amlosgfa crematoria
flames turn sober
the madman that is Death...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Cold Orb In Lycan Skies

The stagnant pearl is in the air,
I see the tumult of rage and sorrow
rise onto winds from shell shocked backs;
half a planet awake tonight,
sober as mists devour hell plagues,
grim fortune lurks beneath heavy coils.
This is night.
The scabbard of Life!
Death has no rule over temperance.
Forward into solace
diseased claw with infernal nails,
songs of black
cast into a fierce cowl.

White soul boiling in its broth,
mountains jostle for new horizons
as eagles bring new scenes.
We tossing twisting,
ever shifting flecks of pulse
soar under moon and star
like tiny ogres roasting swans.
Lethal barbs scar not
whilst poison suffocates in smoke,
the landscapes love and mourn us.
Dashing horns skewer fat wrecks,
relentless headbut of the horns.

It skids politely in the sky
that subtle muse,
crown of ice;
save us from carcass
skull tapped endings.
Temple of the timeless
honest mask of the devil'd night,
guide our shallow pinpricks
as we turn in our deaths.
A stable hope
reminding the godless they are not alone,
omnipresent mega Amen,
root of proof that the poor prosper...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Flesh Weaver (Becoming Damned)

Saint of the damned -
got to hack
or slice
or carve,
to whisk the blood
and salivate
at the thought.

Obey iron hammers
which force the cortex -
to crush
to smash
vanilla bone,
thrill of a kill
making spiders wince,
turning misery
into chronic art.

Line the blood sheaths
dry them in bunches -
for cocaine
or alcohol,
for stunted glory
and variables.
Depend on hate
of an invisible slant eyed crew,
ride tonight
into a venomous maelstrom.

One Two Three
into Two One Three -
led through confetti arches
to a nailbombed bed,
plateau terrible,
a drunk stop.
In darkness bitter hell
soft boughs of love
twist rabid.

Sand boy
troll of carnivals -
hunt in secret
amongst cocktail stalks
and gutters.
Defile trust earned
macabre prince,
the sucking sound of stabbing
mantra of the mad.

Turtle shell -
a devil's head face down
in guts and leather,
in sickening paradise
of razor wings
and yellowing eyes.
Infinite pains
stirring like cancer
for clotted orgasm.

But nothing else
is to be kindled
for such vessel of depravity -
the Seventeen Known
will smother the ballads
and wailing guitar sonnets.
Feathers and dust
gone to soil,
human grains
to unbalanced Death...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

The Sour Storms

Weak is the canopy which holds
soul and organs,
prey to waves of centuries -
knuckled by disease and dogs,
a fragile barrier
broken in earnest.

Like pulpy dolls we die -
crushed, stabbed,
ripped, ravished,
herded into cancerous bowels
as dainty frames collapse into waste.

Every step through this mortal soup
open to a scissor'd wake
whilst sickly shoals swell
within the kidneys,
curried in fermenting grave wax.

Venom lurks between heartbeats
waiting to strike at ticking bulbs
with grim deathly force,
delivering bubonic berry tumours
to every grain of breath.

Friends of Death -
growing en masse against muscle blankets
turning each frond vulgar
from scabs and mucas,
a painters palette
of grisly sugared spawn.

Anvils taking liberties with paper
as razors overcome the lillies;
more ripened bells for hell
crushed under cancers,
fleeced by melanoma -
young dead
baubels of infection.

The gruesome call of misery
rings over heaving skin
and subtle blood stars settle amongst
iron weighted freckles.
Scream at delicate defences
while anguish unfolds
wreaking villanous ends in matted pores...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

S(hell)

Forty years is old,
too old to blossom
in enamel shells.
When spinning months
nobody is truly alive,
we crones
floating crisp with fallen leaves.

The trick to breathing
is to encase it in tin
before varicose veins
and shellshock arrive
to hijack the portrait.
The trick is dying
before memory casts a shadow.

Young creatures die quick
and cross over to welcoming fields
while bone festers in the sun;
flesh, a cheap cloak
worn away with age.
Life is not absolute
here on earthly mists
where human milk curdles by design;
shallow and fragile
this limited precursor.

Senseless fruit aged
by granite chapters
falling from wizened branches
into bedtime, medicine and coma.
These flecks,
blood fists of pulses
are boiled in hedonistic kettles,
prepared for life
without the cogs of weeks and years
and rumy waltzes...

Steven Francis poems 2009

Pupil Dilates and Swallows Time

They are there
hissing barracudas
always potent,
across ravaged precipices
and watery dawns -
hungry dots in jubilee
like ink splashed over lament.

Bric-a-brac
jigsaw,
solemn grains
stuffed into king worm
never to be seen again.
Into rippled subways
swallowed in earnest.

Infinite rhythms
rolling through starry meadows
as mighty hunger pains
look for a sphere bolus
to feed on
and crush -
reigned in with a stellar belt.

No time
or muscle,
no metal
or mammal
will bring dawn
to the grand gate of Supershadow.
All locked -
from dust to angels -
in boldest eternal band...

@Steven Francis 2009

Marching Drum of the Chambers

In here
on the other side of the phlegm coils
fresh air is stalled,
buffered by isolation
and clipped on sterile steel.
Sanctuary of the horned
in pretty gulags,
severed from beating sun,
kept beyond the reach of nature.
No sand to swallow heels
or rivers to speak of,
forget estuaries and rugged coasts
here lies dead ends.
No tree bark to scuff
the finger pads,
no dew on webby toes.
Brain lost in hazy halls of solitude
where hair is all that grows;
dreams and breath,
deserved of nothing more
in a dungeon sink hole...

@Steven Francis popems 2009

Melody Druid

The past
Dreamcast,
in electric pastures
of Japanese echo ballads
and tendon pickled daydreams.
God of mandolin
scuff along the scarlet hills
of Shenmue,
of revenge.
Gun
kick,
magic
bomb;
a logo
praise ghost stamp!
Killer of all
band legged cartoon print...

@Steven Francis Poems 2009

Welcome To Dust

The chapters are open
peel away now
skin from eager tongue,
let loose stories and hymns,
ballads of the dead
and crooked.
Bone,
water
flow molten saliva
from a gentle cheek...

23rd October 2009

Steven Francis