Rough-hewn.

Rough-hewn is how I feel.

As if imperfect hands have torn down
my cloying, perfect prison.
Dragged me kicking into the light.
Pursed their lips
now, here's how we're going to make this work
Sheared pieces of me off that didn't fit.
The attempt was made
somewhere in that gumbo of intentions
and cat's eyes in the dark
and soft leanings in towards one another
to sculpt.

But it didn't quite work
the commitment wasn't there
and I was left an unfinished creation
yearning for the embrace of the earth.

Rough-hewn is how I feel.

Proud, though.
Self-sufficient in my incomplete aspects.
Strong in the smooth planes of my body.
Powerful in my resistance to their tools
and chisels.
An engine held in my chest cavity.
Surrounded by rock.
Bellows forth my rage.

I will be good enough for my own purposes.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Till the soil.
Backs bend with honest sweat.
Stone-sheen shines.
Granite.
They attempted to turn me into a cog,
but I am ill-fitting in your arms.

Encourage me to sculpt myself,
or rough-hewn I remain.
Powerful and steady on the earth.

Alabastard

I'm not going to pretend anymore
and for that I suppose I should apologise.
I go about my daily life
thrown at trouble, thrown at strife
in this we are no different.

I'm not going to pretend anymore
and you should probably be afraid.
For I can kill you with a thought
my mind a blade, my passions wrought
against those who oppose me.

I'm not going to pretend anymore
that I'm anything but an angel.
I'll raise a hand and spill some blood
Spare the child, spoil the rod,
for might is right and I am unopposed.

Cloaked in shadow, cloaked in night.
I ruin all without a fight.
By this you are undone.

Might is right, and I can't be deposed.
Right is might and I am strong of will.
Might is right and with my mind I kill.
Right is might, and I'm right, I suppose.

What on earth powers this?
The slow poison?
The quick hit?
There's really no defying it.

I'll bruise, but I'll endure.

at least i tasted it

I sit here in my scornful pride above you
imagining
what it would be like for us both
if I could view you as something slightly more
something that wasn't quite beneath my notice
here in the dark
and with my thoughts on transcendence
if I could factor you into them
and take you with me
what that would do for the pair of us.
Then I remember what it took the last time
for us to get on an even playing field
(even for you to overcome that temporarily
and command me)
and I realize now that without those
artificial contrivances
there's no way to attain that
for I have placed myself so high above you
that your survival mechanisms have kicked in
and for my hands to find your body in the way that we both might wish
(might)
would require a suspension of a status quo
that we both buy into almost by accident.

Still, there was that tremor in your voice as you asked me
to warn you.
There was that hunger in your kiss when you took
what you wanted.
There is the way my eyes slide across your body
in the darkness.
There is that tension in the air when we're alone
in my mind.

But I am proud, and you are far below.

I Knew

The man I knew was a stuffed-shirt fool.
He promised us order and spoke quick and low.
The man I knew liked to bend at the rules.
But then the wind changed and he had to go.

(I owe you an update on what I've been doing,
but it's been so long,
so very long,
and all I can dredge up from my frenetic, twitching mind
are more words.
So many wonderful words,
and even this brief interlude taxes me.
But for the archivists, the archaeologists,
the far-flung futures who unearth this
among the detritus of a forgotten civilization's
digital footprint
I am alive.
I am happy.
I owe you.)

I thought you weren't feeling well.
I wanted to bring you the light of the stars.
You flow from the mouth with a tongue black as Hell.
I fight on my feet but you're winning - thus far.

The man I knew was made out of straw.
You hid 'neath his cloak and you made his mouth twitch.
The man I knew? What a lech, what a whore.
But the honey-slick words made my skin and loins itch.

Break me upon the bulwark of your eyes.
Give me a reason to fall away from your self.
Allow me to be suckered in by your lies.
They may keep you safe, but they're bad for your health.

The man that I knew? Well, he never was.
His value inestimable; money can't buy.
The man that I knew, he would fight without cause.
But the man he's become will roll over and die.

I will forge you in the fire of my conviction.
I am yours but I'll beat you until you are healing.
Though you should fear me as any addiction.
I am the pathway to satisfied feeling.

Into the Ditch

They kiss after cussing and curse the ground they lay on.

Under the eaves,
Whispering wind.
Their bellies are full.

The feast has ended.
Long live the king.
Good health to all.

The snowfall begins.
Under the eaves.
Their stomachs are bloated.

You fear for them now?
Well that you might.
Wind howls them to fright.

Under the eaves.
Under the trees.
Their bones turn to dirt.

Off with their shirts.
Out with their coin.
Into the ditch.

Prissy old witch.
Bloated old bag.
Into the ditch.

Rich preening fools.
Smothered young sots.
Into the ditch.

Ignore the hunger.
Ignore the hunger.
It won't reign much longer.

Long live the king.

Needle-bright

I'm going to attempt to respond in kind.
(Well, perhaps this evening I already have
though that's a different kind of affection
and says little about what you have done for me).
I'll have to cast my memory back further.

An evening spent slumped.
So many of mine are.
Your eyes needle-bright in the darkness.
Cigarette smoke drifting past my face.
Toxins of my choosing sanctifying the air.
My God, how grounded I was.

We removed ourselves temporarily.
Stepped outside of time,
outside of the circle.
How often we do this.
Entities capable of utter removal
and utter ability.
Something I've always admired.

I leaned over that wooden table
in that upstairs bar
surrounded by those that I love
and I said something fucking stupid.
Like, "We can't go on like this."

You drank me in.
I needed the flame, the affirmation, the consumption.
I looked at those needle-bright eyes,
desperately seeking something, anything
that would justify this leap of faith
this foolishness
this wanton attempt at solidity.

You gave me what I needed.
You never fail to give me what I need.
The stars shone upon me
(or not, for the memory is clouded)
and your skin shone a dull ivory
from the inside lights.

I named it love and love it was.
There, in that upstairs bar,
over that wooden table.
You burned me to ash
with that damnable half-smile
and those needle-bright eyes.

It was the tipping point.
It was inescapable.
It was a surrender.
But most of all, it was sublime.

You are sublime.
I fumbled for you.
Something slid into place.

Here we are.

Passion

We play this game eternally, we play this game alone.
We play it unforgettably, we play it in our bones.
Sure, we'll play this game eternally, the devil makes us sick.
But we can't keep his words at bay, we're burning in his grip.

He will love you like a flower, like a flash of rain.
He will break his smile on you and nothing is the same.

We play this game eternally, and we just won't belong.
We'll roll around on satin sheets, we'll rut against the wall.
We'll fall into each other's arms, we'll warm us when we fall.
We'll play until it's comfortable, the night will sing along.

Love is like a fire, my love -
for the one that feels this heat the same.
Look at him, with his hair falling in waves.
He will love you for the night and he will never love again.

He will love you like a pyre, like a burning flame.
He will break his wiles on you and you remain the same.

Love is like a fire, my love -
for the one that feels this heat the same.
Look at him, with his heart falling in waves.
He will love you for the night and he will never love again.

You have heat for me, my love -
The thrumming base, this anarchy's to blame.
Oh, Lord, the devil makes me sick,
but I'm prepared to fall again, to twist within his grip.

Oh, love...

Death

Why did I finish with you?
Why will you finish me?
It's all so irrational.
You're the hardest to speak of and yet you define me.
I'm hurtling towards you at the speed of light.
Your embrace is inescapable;
and yet I mock you
defy you
deny you
and abjure any semblance of your presence.

Are you pale?
I pale before you.
Are you loud?
I make a great noise.
Are you quiet?
I'll keep perfectly still.
Are you dark and cold?
I'm warm, and you'll be the thief of that.
Will you come to me alone?
I surround myself with great hosts.

All I know about you for sure is that you don't have an understanding of funerals and that you like cats.
That isn't enough for a working relationship, surely.
I'll understand if you aren't pleased to see me.
I'm to understand that I've treated you poorly.

You've sheparded billions and yet I want you to treat me as special.
That's the ultimate folly behind this.
Our embrace needs to be special, our dalliance needs to move mountains.
Dare I hope that you're monogamous?
Wouldn't it break your heart a million, billion times over?

Wouldn't it break mine to have to leave you after the instant?
We kiss and I am snuffed out.
How could I deal with that?
Oblivion would be preferable.

Maybe that's the greatest of secrets.
After looking upon your face, we beg for our ends, and maybe whatever comes next is tolerable.
But how could you bear it?

Desire

Your skin is warm.
I cast twin-shadows, one knife-edged,
the other shimmering-splendid.
Always the possessor, never the possessed.
I fill your cup.
I break your back.
I fill you up.

Your breath smells like summer.
I live within myself.
Twisted up and back around
so I may taste my own flesh.
I'll light a cigarette.
I'll wear it best.
I'll put your life and love to the absolute test.
How could you resist?
Why would you?

I am everything that you've ever wanted.
Everything that you'll ever want.
I am the feel of his blood on your face.
I am the joy that rushes through your veins.
I am the pleasure you'll never replace.
I am the sin that you'll never explain.
I am food.
I am drink.
I am the smoke, the ash, the orgasm.


You are nothing without me.
I get you out of bed in the morning.
I put you to bed in the evening.
I reach into your skull and move you about the world
like a puppet dancing on strings that you attempt to climb
for the merest brush of my bone-white flesh against yours.
I saturate you -
right down in your pores -
and it will never, ever be enough.

Drink deep.
I will give you what you seek.
My eyes are gold, your soul is old,
and I will keep it young.
The taste is on your tongue,
and you are so very weak.

If you're very lucky you'll make me smile.
If you're luckier still you'll gain my favour.
You will never forget me.
For I am you, and everybody,
and we will take what is ours in the deepest hours of your life.

Despair

I don't want to do this on the threshold between awake and asleep, but there's no other time.
She's difficult to summon these days.
I haven't felt her hook in my flesh for many, many moons.
She doesn't often come at night, but by the weak light of day
when all of these fickle imperfections are obvious to all.
If you could hide them she'd keep her distance, but her hook is in your flesh and she's tugging, tugging, tugging.

The dog is tugging at the sleeve on her jacket. She'd get up to help him, but she can't even get up to help herself, these days. Sunlight filters through the blinds occasionally but she just rolls over and buries her face in the sweat-soaked leather of the couch. Between the hours of ten and one, the room is bathed in light, but she won't open her eyes - it'll remind her of him, of the things that he left behind that she can't bring herself to clear away.
There's a half-finished cigarette in the ashtray and she wants to light it up and inhale the stale tobacco, letting the impurity wash over her and subsume her, and maybe then she'll feel filthy enough to get up and have a shower and take stock of her life, but she can't remember if the cigarette was his or hers and so she leaves it where it was while the sun passes across the sky.
Soon it'll be night again and she'll probably break a glass and hold a shard up to her eye, all refracted edges and planes. 
It's something to look forward to.

God, I'm watching her right now and she's feeding on rats and refuse and drinking from a goblet and the liquid is clouded and she just don't care, she just doesn't care, she can't bring herself to care because this sustains her and all I want to do is run.

He can't bring himself to run anymore. The mist has rolled in and he can't see his hand in front of his face, for which is is grateful, as it's probably stained with all manner of filth. He buried it as deep as he could but they'll find it, somebody's told them where to look, and once they dig it up and find the shovel and unearth it they'll all know and he'll have lost everything. It isn't as if he had a choice - nobody would listen, but he knew that if they'd just take a few of them apart and see how they worked there would be a fundamental difference, something that'd set his name down in the medical books and make him more than just an oafish drunk living off his parent's money. He had been so sure, but then somebody noticed the disappearance and he had to run for it, but that wasn't going to work, he doesn't even have a coin to his name and nobody would recognize him out here and help him but they'd sure remember him, and then it'd be a long walk and a short drop and that'd be the end of him, dangling on that noose.
They'd all see it happen.
He'd have to look her in the eye as he dropped.
So he keeps running until he drops and he can feel them closing in.

No, you can't. I can see you reaching for it, but there's nothing in those cold dead eyes that means I should give it up. You're a void, do you hear me, you fucking bitch, and I know now that there's nothing you can offer me, nothing in you but a shortcut to your sisters and an early grave, and I'll be damned a thousand times if you manage to wrest it from me again, I mean, I don't even dare cry, I can't bring myself to cry, you're always so much closer when I cry.

He can't stop crying.
His back hurts from the belt and his throat hurts from the hand and the screams and his feet hurt where he hit the ground running and he needs to stop and clean himself up and get back into the room and face it with dignity and just stop, for fuck's sake, but he just keeps on crying.
The roof of the house is pretty easy to access, he knows. Just climb onto the fence, grab the gutter, swing your legs up, and there you are. He spent weeks up there putting up Christmas lights, to celebrate a holiday that no longer held any meaning for him, ordered up there by a man who cared nothing for the holiday and everything for the chance to show the neighborhood and the others that here was a man in control. Weeks on the roof and the ground so perilously close, so tantalizingly far away. Just one slip and it'd be over - they'd put him in a hospital, set his bones, and then surely he'd have to be treated differently. There'd be no more belt, no more gasping for air, no more forced silences. No more being a pawn on the ogre's chessboard. The edge is right there.
Stop crying and clean yourself up, or you'll never make the climb.
He can't stop crying.

You did your work too well, and now I'm free of you.
Enjoy your empty hall.

Destiny

It is written. It is all written.
The threads are bound up tight.
From the highest power to the lowest atom.
They dance upon my pages.
World, time, and space without end, until my book is taken from me.

Dream

I've written of you before and will a thousand times before I die.

A sack of sand will guide my way.
The twisted branches mocking me.
Just one more night, and I'll be free.

Weaving might and more, you'll say,
Is this how we were meant to be?
A sack of sand will guide my way.

This place is where gods go to pray.
Walk through their eyes and we shall see.
Just one more night, and I'll be free.

A landscape shuttered, closed from me.
Bring the monsters, come what may,
A sack of sand will guide my way.

And all will melt by light of day.
What have you wrought in spite of me?
A sack of sand will guide my way.
Just one more night, and I'll be free.

Destruction

I'll sculpt these forces into forms.
The boys wears rags
and his nails form pointed claws.
Wings sprout from his tortured back.

I've made my fair share of ruins,
but I've never unearthed one.
I've shattered plenty of galleries,
but never held a brush.
I've smashed cities to dust
but never walked a street.
God help me, I've burned books,
and I never learned to read.

There are little girls pointing and laughing.
Somebody is cooking something.
A dog chases cars.
A boy sits in the dark and his nails are trimmed.
He prays for wings.

Those girls will die in a train wreck, their tender forms broken beneath a twist of iron and steel.
That man - not a cook - will burn his food, and fetch the can opener, and step closer to my sister.
That dog will bite a man and be put down, and that car will explode when the fuel line fails.
A freak accident.
I am the freak accident.

I only fly in soot-stained skies.
My hands will rend apart whatever they touch.
I wear rags because I cannot be otherwise.
I dare not be otherwise.
I dare not hope.

My canvas is civilization, wrath and ruin.
My brush is hatred, vengeance and terror.
My paint is blood.
There is so much blood.

I'll break these forms into forces.
The boy wears rages,
and his hands dissolve into acidic slime.
Wings furl over his tear-streaked face as the stars themselves die.
He is beautiful.
He dares nothing.

I live in moments where everything is dared, and lost.
I die in moments where everything is grasped at in vain.
I watch when men plan,
I awake when men fail.

And when she's around, I never can seem to stop laughing.

Delirium

Mr Gaiman sent me, after writing those comics that he wrote where the main character stops what he's doing and looks out at me and looks me right in the goddamn eye and I knew that I had to do this, just fucking knew it, that deep-down know it in the bones feeling that you don't get anymore, but he gave it to me.

I can't find a fucking marker and by all the gods I've eaten I need one, but there's no way to get the message out unless I put it on the internet, and the Catholics will probably get to it before it reaches your ears but I don't have a choice. The world will thank me for WHAT.

i'm doing, and there's a way to serve him and a way to keep him away from me but there's a goddamn woman and she won't stop singing, she just won't stop and she's wringing tears out of me, tears out of a goddamn stone and she won't stop, she'll never stop, I've gotta talk to her because if she can keep doing this it means she isn't under their control and they can't get near her but neither can I and I just want her to turn it off for five fucking minutes so we can talk.

         and then he's shouting

he's shouting get the hell off me, get away from me

I don't want it, I never wanted it, fuck you, get away from me, get off me.

On and on and on this litany he's spouting

don't know what he's so afraid of.

It's a hell of a lot easier to just go inside and let it happen to somebody else

like I did

but I gotta know

what are you all doing in here with me?

I have heard the songs of apocalypse and I will appreciate the silence. I could raise an army at my shout but what's the good in that? Too many armies out there these days, not like how it was in my day, all of that destruction and despair and desire happened behind closed doors, they didn't walk boldly down the street and pick people out of the crowd and give them gifts, gifts of whatever it is that people think they wanted or they needed or whatever, but at least dream had the decency to keep his distance and let us come to him. It was better in those days, before my third eye opened, and then my fourth, and then I was blessed or cursed with second sight and God stopped looking and I couldn't keep any of my friends because the rainbows around their heads were burning and it hurt my many eyes to look upon them, so I opened some more and then everybody could see my soul and I had to go.

Yes, it was better back then.

SING, FISH-FACE. 

SING FOR ME.

AND CHANGE YOUR HAIR.

I'LL LEAD YOU OUT OF HERE.

There's too many paths, too many goddamn paths.

Don't fucking look at me.

She keeps singing.

The Catholics.

I mean, it isn't like I mind, but I rather expected more room.

Once upon a time.

I suppose this is the part where I trail off giggling.

Beneath Notice

Men and women, barely.
Flowering in the soil of their youth.
They are beautiful and they are unseen.
The garden is watered by tears.
But entwined around each other
they surrender all their fears.

They torture their bodies in a well-meaning way.
Neglect and pleasure is the path that they walk.
They have such an awful lot to say -
but they say it quietly.
And in the weak and wavering light of day
they take stock of themselves and one another.

They whisper to one another
sweet nothings, usually.
Occasionally something of vast import
that goes unnoticed by the roiling world.
They keep one another safe
in the places they claim.
They tell simple stories
and they play complex games.

A handful of sand is clutched in a fist.
The world does not tremble at their step.

No.

FUCK.

Sometimes I Wonder

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I could turn my gaze away from flickering machines.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I fell badly on my back and it broke into two.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were to tell me "I no longer care."
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were to take lies and make them true.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I could turn my face away from the burning sun.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I left the house and hopped a train and never looked back.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were to marry my brother and become my lover.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were to pick up a kitchen knife and attack.

Do you ever lie awake at night and wonder?
Do you ever lie awake at night and blunder?
Do you ever lie awake at night with dappled shadows at the edge of sight,
Do you ever lie awake and take a flight of fancy?

Sometimes I wonder.

Firstargot

There were two snakes and they were intertwined,

One biting at the neck of the other with the tails twisted downwards.

The lesser subsumes the greater, at least, so I believed.

But then I brought myself back to wakefulness and the scales faded.

But the snakes unwound and burrowed in to stay.

The wind outside blows warm in frigid places,

stirring up the cobwebs of the dream-fugue heavy in me

and the sunlight sparkles onto the dusty bedsheets

and I blink and groan as it dances across my face and sears 

that bloody-minded tyrant from the inside of my retinas.

There was nothing in my hands but the cobwebs blown outward

through the stain-glassed windows of my eyes with strains alighting on my soul.

Some to be brushed away by further introspection.

Others will remain and take some form of permanent residence

upon the red-stained places that I allow myself to cultivate. 

But with wakefulness fades the true and torturous insights

that so roughly blasted from my mind with the rising sun.

There's a thousand mundane mercies baying like bloodhunts for my attention.

So I allow myself to be subsumed by the miniature of the scenario,

There is no time left for introspection.

One day they may flower and feed upon the fertile places I allow.

Watered by rage and allowed to grow stronger by inattention.

There's always the possibility that this is all an insight in and of itself.

I fear the dawning of the sun that pulls forth this through my true eyes

and burns the recollection of all of this away.

Liminal Thinking

Walls of granite.
There, that's a place to start, right?
Oh, who are you kidding,
You know nothing about stone.
Whatever it is, it's cold
and you're far away from home
underground
or in the ocean
or on a mountain
or something.
Who knows.
There was rushing air at some point.

Anyway, there's no door.

Scrabble at the walls.
Scrabble at the corners.
Scrabble at the floor.
Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble.

There's no air in here and your time is running out.
There's a confused rush of senses.
Sight, sound, smell.
A rusted chain link fence and a thirst like the Devil's own.
A car blasting a tinny old horn.
But there's no door and the air is running out and there's nothing in the room.

You step outside the cube.
What the fuck.
You weren't supposed to be able to do that.
There's a sky out here, which is a good sign.
And the sun is sinking but there's still time.
And...oh, there's a brook or stream or something.
Have a drink, I suppose you've earned it.

How the fuck did you do that?

We put you in that box to die.
Palsied white hands (hah, get it? Patriarchy. Or something) picked you up
and locked you in.
You were supposed to wander around a bit.
Scream impotently, or rage at the heavens or something.
Curl up in the center and eventually stop twitching.
There was no door.
We made sure there was no door.
You have no rights.
You have no rites.
Get back in the box.

What's that you're cradling?

Avoiding Silence

I know you're out there,
I can hear you breathing.
Please don't stop...
for both our sakes.
There's something writhing under my skin that only you can see.
The ground is littered with dead things and you can feel them dying.
There's spirits in the clouds.
This stuff pulls away the shroud and we're finally seeing everything.
And then you raise your hand against somebody and you don't know why.
For the love of God, be careful.
Don't let it in.
Don't let it out.
Our Father, who art in heaven.
Burn the sage.
Turn the page.
And tomorrow we'll all be blind and alright.
You don't understand,
and neither do I, but we'll mouth the pointless syllables anyway.

I wouldn't wear shoes.
I wanted to feel the grass - the soil beneath my toes.
If I didn't have that, I would float away
outside of the confines of this body made of toothpicks and spit
that catches aflame in the heat of the sun
and the furnace of air and fire that I use against this uncertainty.

There's a yellow moon.
There's a dancing fool covered in paint with a dice slapping against his chest.
All of a sudden he's me and I'm meeting his gaze in the mirror
and I don't know what to do with what I've found
and there's a pair of hands on my body and they're keeping me here
but I want to float away and leave this cage behind
this sprawling cage that dances and falls down and offers up patterns and

hunger.

But here I remain.

I know you're out there.
I can't hear you breathing.
But you wouldn't leave me in this place alone.

Talk

But do you think there's a new way you could be?


I would always assume.
She never tried.


That's petty.


In fairness, this must be paranoia.
 Fuck you're stupid, Jason.

Love/hate, mummy's little princess.
Listen to me.


Every so often, we all need a chat.


She hasn't bothered.


Who cares?




Time to throw myself back in.

A Bird on Acid

A bird flutters to a bird bath,
sips,
       falls in and drowns.

A pair of wrinkled old hands
   delicately pick apart
           the sinew, joints, wing and bone.

A pair of puckered lips,
 press flesh to tongue
    swallow. Gentle.

And Miss Plath the nurse says 'Don't put that in your mouth dear, it's already dead, come inside and get a towel.'