30 December 2009

Black and White Photograph

14 April 2009

to look upon you, young again,
is to feel a spring rising in
my heart that will ever
flow

those founts, flowing pure, over
the stones, speak again, in
whispering tones, day and night,

those pearls of words, worlds,
clattering to the floor, I
gathered up, lining my pockets

with their smoothness, fingering
the beads and whispering back
yes, I am here,

and here I will stay, and
speak, for awhile yet, listening, always
to the founts pure flow

The Incident on Azzarox Street (or "Wrath")

one of these fifteen-minute eggs
Ira was, and such a temper
(though that is a word for

children and he a was a man
from the soles of his boots up and not to be
trifled with)

smashed the

windows, he did, in his house
on Azzarox Street, then held
her rigid, by her hair, as a

butterfly, pin-pricked, for
his devouring, framed by
the stairwell down to the

cellar and the furnace
burning red, her face held
too close to his flame, burning,

burning, burning

The Far Pastures (or "Envy")

moss-green his eyes were as
he hung the chains about
her neck and she,

she wore them willingly,
casting glances at those
other, grander pastures

forbidden to her, behind stone walls, and
the longing wore her away
to bone, her heart, ribbon-

cut, meat sliced, rare, upon
a platter, shuddering within the
whitened hulk of her ribs

oh, how the chains weigh down
now, their indelible impressions
leaving their weird script upon her shoulders,

oh beware, beware, his greening eyes,
his hands about your neck,
the curling lip of his invidious smile

An Old Receipt (or "Gluttony")

butter, flour, six eggs and
more, cream from the
top of the jug, the

fine-ground caster sugar
the Madeira wine spilling
over the glass and onto

his tongue, shifting his limbs,
gout-inflamed, seeking relief
from the jagged appetites

never surfieted, never satisfied,
always chasing the last crumbs
round the plate, sopping the

gravy with still-warm bread
while others hungered for
the crumbs from his table,

his veins hardened and cracked,
blood sluggish and stultified,
knife and fork ever at the ready

Don't Lose the Morning (or "Sloth")

a dream of rest extended
until mid-day; if you lose
the morning you'll

be running the rest of the
day to catch up....still....
delicious to close your

eyes against the world and
lapse again into sweet sleep
and those oft-coursed dreams

of what? Desires
in a dressing-gown, moving, sluglike,
room to room, leaving a clobber

of debris behind, teacups, the
crusts of a late breakfast, the
kitchen, hastily cleaned before

drowsing into a late afternoon
slumber........

28 December 2009

Another Mills and Boon Romance (or "Lust")

and so, Admodeus passes a sweet
from his lips to hers and she
hungers for his limbs with a thirst

in her throat born of the desert, those
barren moonlit nights her body
was silvered over and the

peacocks screeched in the
zoological gardens and she
longed again for that thrust

and retreating from her, the
taste of his mouth, hard upon
hers, the bristle of his hair,

hell-singed, his eyes blackly
staring upon her whiteness, those
pillars of ivory borne down

upon to the breaking point and
then, the shattering of the
sky, broken so by his laughter

Goldman Sachs (or "Greed")

grasping, so, he places the paper,
made flat to stack, in the
storeroom, these notes that will
grow grey, then golden, over the
course, the term of years set down
in inky black, always more and
more, and more again, singularly
unsurfeited he is, the small
voice in his soul bellowing, belligerent,
in polyester trousers, crowned with
beads of sweat, the veins roping out
of his neck, coursing blue--he

cannot

get

enough

to satisfy the counting-house of
his mind, the calculations of
compounding interest lulling him,
finally,
into fretful sleep

Lucy in Her Courtyard (or "Pride")

Lucy tosses her locks, superb in
this sylvan suburb of
pleasant oaks and holly-hocks,
the ivy curling round the grandly
gated house, her
haughty step a clattering of
well-shod hooves upon
the paving stones carved to
her exact specifications,
caressing her barefoot soles as
she ensures that the
neighbors see only the
best and brightest
made her adornments, the
stones ground and cut, displayed
in her hair, glittering tiara
hiding a baser metal, the
manacles, too, mind-forged, she
seeks to place round his wrists,
this young one, lean like
a whippet, head laid upon
her lap