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