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

Shuriken Lake

Glass crested centipedes
hunt the sane in crepe broths,
spiteful in persistance
mighty in their patience,
watching the frost fish on mad paths.
Cock a leg to Fear
in stygian mist,
the bombers are paralysed
as wax gathers like sickly pools
on putrid flesh.

Oiled devil pose
in creepy un-natural ways,
keen to find the stilled pearls
as they power stalk
beneath a lightning shelter
of heamorrhaged vessels.
Inside crystal lined cots
gaping mouths catch bats
on a sonic route to hell
and fattened eels fall in love
with the bloated tongues of milk dolls.

Into cascading mania
and locked in black,
the ice whispers drift onward
through mackerel valleys
carried by wings of ethereal swans.
To the pegged shroud dynasty
across luminous sands,
sail shrieking, rubber banshees -
broody parcels of the fell sergeant...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Pyre Symptoms (Of A Tear)

See much berries in bunches
flourishing in bladed avenues -
the death hawk keeps it close
(that frigid secret)
but witness a glimpse
beneath jackal shawls
of an expiring dome
and knuckles curled like bush fires.

Watch cadaverous dancers knock on pine
with a dishwater pallor
whilst fiery petals flicker on lizard gills.
Pray for meat and rosaries,
a final cube of sugar
to dissolve in cyanide yolks
as Angeu's crew clad in denim robes
raise a battleaxe to cannibals
and maids of honour.

On maps of blood
not a limb is spared;
no gates opened for king nor child
for every bone yields to death,
nothing survives a sincere frenzy.
Born fragile to skin and oils
to a savage world
of time and cut throats.
Seek sanctuary
in the chapel wild...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Adieu Nosferatu

Dash those gas pellets
pummel them into my leather breasts;
gift me volcano heroin
and polish the switch
then lay me in white pastures
with my kin.
After sunless months
I look with longing to vertigo journeys.

So lather my kidneys
stone these eyes,
throttle sin out of its blasphemous shell
and lead me through troughs of shame.
Kill my nosferatu
fill my fists with holy dust,
save me from glazed winterlands
master, dissolve these earthly bonds...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

No Love Of Summer

Here and there (where the sun deems fit to touch)
are pockets of merry tinctures
rushing toward a camera lens,
eager to reign in spewy blossoms
to show glory what glory should be.
But all the wild boy does
is sit cross legged in bitter death defying moods
feeding Scylla and Charbydis,
clicking his ruby nails over sincere fables.
He knows the demons know
and the burdens lay heavy
straining to crush maddening threads of joy,
turning holy balms to cinder.

Life must feed on fat,
those plush meadows of comfort
where cotton spines stay safe from hurt
and fangs of darkness lurk behind their doors
jonesing to introduce them misfortune.
No golden season nor honey lanes
shall meet and guide the troubled good
or their cold livers
as they slip into unknown depths
beneath brittle eyelids.
And in those frozen wastes be warned,
bare branches cradle ghosts and hatchets.

Shamen sense with barbed whiskers
the sour rays of a suppurated sun
no longer cooled by gin toned dew,
while visitors stumble on foreign shelves
near the frayed ends of safety.
The cross legged child squints at the moon
as it throbs against its tar breasted background
struggling with weights of approaching sunshine;
fragments of idle holidays lost
shattered like a plastic Gordian knot.
Stay safe from deamons and what madness understands,
the structure of light
and grinning darlings of infernal abyss...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

World Below/Winter Fathoms

Furious drifts harden thrashing webs
prepared to shred the shallow wasteland -
what foul bolus upsets that neverending beast
to turn from gentle spine
(such millpond creases)
into herds of hissing tendrils?
The backs of flooded cities scream upward
from shelled maelstroms,
hinting to tourists
of seismic tendons beneath the frothy mane.
Surrender a piece of sanity from your molten ego
so that Man might be as calmed
as tides of season.
There is no more mad poison
for sentinels and townsfolk to simmer on;
rabid themes sleep amongst infernal surges
gathering serenity in fresh pockets of sand.
Cowboys and fishermen still seek dread loot
but the sun lures nothing -
only drowned cadavers like eyeless holy relics
howl where nets are cast...

@Steven Francis poems 2010