PAUL WHITE
Day
On occasion I lie on my back
pondering the fractal nature of my tree
inverted and cleaved by my window.
The source in its true place
and it’s shootlings in theirs.
The source (of course)
is cheated by the greed,
the greed of its shootlings
and their shootlings
and their shootlings
And indeed through my
earth eyes
I can see the source
of its source -
hidden forever from sight.
Unless out-dug.
Let us now pay homage to the source.
In exemplum
A wet fire burns in
my canopic chest.
It inspires me to
stretch - in exemplum -
like Nut.
I always thought I could be taller.
My smallest mark a star.
My largest an unseen galaxy.
Not to see all.
Not to be the sky.
To be there.
The Circus of the Moon
In the perfect roundness,
sultry and inviting,
something is amiss.
There are no lions,
roaring in their terrifying majesty,
promising of a dark continent
and striking fear into the unknowing.
No fools, tumbling like puppies
engendering laughter from all,
(or at least a smile)
despite themselves.
Where are the trapeze and tight rope?
Where the sweat and the sinew?
The clinging clothes
and heaving chests?
Not here.
Not in the Circus of the Moon.
In the murky light
mist crawls and lurches in -
anything unsealed is entered.
The stripes appear to
run down the tent -
old blood -
as if the supporting pole
punctured a wound.
In charge are the knife-throwing
lothario, a rose of vivid green
and scarlet inbetween his sharp teeth,
and that girl from the peep show.
Woodsmoke and a crying child
the only applause.
Return to Happiness
The moon smiles down,
a discarded piece of fingernail -
chewed off by a laughing child,
and the iron cell in his chest
fillS with sweet water,
rusts,
and dissolves.
The hardness is discarded
like an eyelash -
blown away to make a wish.
And as it thuds to the earth,
it is picked up by a disbelieving
fairy and transmuted to sand.
The imagined greenth
moves up between his toes
like glorious mud and
his feet are covered.
And as each cell of every
vessel is greened,
it comes closer to his
new softness.
And when it reaches his softness,
it bursts forth
to reach Heaven,
as if he had been found -
by a happy green torch from above.
Matrimony
Come and violate me.
Never in all my pornogothic dreams
could I imagine a master such as you.
Hold me captive with your magnetic dungeon eyes.
As you approach my bed of nails,
slippery and sticky with my red sex;
All I want is your razor claws
digging into my wrists.
Marry my wrists together with the metal ring -
circle neverending - forever.
Blood against blood
marbling my outstretched arms.
Rape my ears with your jagged syllables.
Tell me everything I never wanted to know.
No safe-word.
No black.
And when my eyes are vermilion with you,
open your rusted black heart and let me in -
to cry on your bare concrete floor - and then
close it up and lock it up and never let me go.
Man
Broken mirror on the floor
who is he, hirsute whore
who sold himself away?
He who put his dreams in a
plastic bag - 39c at the shop -
swapped green for grey?
It is him.
Member of that disgusting race.
Cowboys don’t cry.
Be a man.
Roll with the punches.
Go forth and conquer.
Here is your Alexander the Great,
your Ivan the Terrible.
He has a humorous noose around his neck
and a brown paper bag full of pathetic
carbohydrate sandwiches.
He is a warmonger, rapist and oppressor.
A loathsome lustful beast who
is painted with blood.
Apparently his heart is reached through
a muscular bag of acid -
when, obviously it is much easier
to lay him down and splay his
fatty ribs open and reach in and take it.
He doesn’t need it.
The McDonalds monster was going to eat it anyway.
Take the reflective shards, you fop!
and cut tears for yourself.
No one will do it for you.
Be a man.
Look at your stinking face.
Lift your shaking, perverted-pig hand!
Scared are you? Chicken?
Good, now pull your carefully brushed hair back.
Lift it.
And sever it and throw it away.
Reduce yourself to the fucking repugnant
sex-crazed animal you are!
And when you are bald, as we all knew you
would be, throw your hair to the wind.
Marvel at its liberation.
Now is the time to show your true colours,
to pull through.
Everyone is counting on you.
Mr do-it-your-fucking-self!
Reach up to your face and pull the skin tight.
Bring your shard up to your sweaty neanderthal forehead.
Start to cut.
Slash and slice until it is all red.
Peel yourself like a grapefruit.
Scratch at your countenance with your diseased claws
and get on your knees for once.
You sacrificial dot.
Hang your head in shame.
You could not even do this right.
You serial-killer, rapist, lecher.
Try again.
Pull it all off.
And now as you bleed red tears,
content yourself with the fact that
that babies have been doing this
since time immemorial.
Sepulchre
Shriek at me
Make my ears bleed
Let is score ravines down my neck -
Your waterfalls.
Drink it, bathe in it.
I am stone, you see -
this is nothing to me.
Touch my granite lips
with your flesh -
does it abrade you?
Feel their immortality.
Their refusal to part is
their divine design.
By being shut they
stop the insects from making
a home.
My Uranium core is my
only communication.
Bring your chattering Geiger Counter.
I am stone, you see -
this is nothing to me.
I am neverending,
yet neverexisting.
Happy with my
unemotion.
A separate piece of the All-Encompassing.
I am stone, you see -
this is nothing to me.
Take a step back and look
at me with your moist eyes.
See how mine cannot.
I am my own sepulchre, and yet
my own stone reverberates with
your pulchritude.
My rocky fists were intended
for their endlessness and boulderous
size - why do they want to
be adorned with you garlands?
I am stone, you see-
this is everything to me.
Invisiboy I
Look past the acres of duvet,
Past the softness,
To the silhouette
Of Invisiboy –
My Fear Factory
Pisschrist.
In his eyes is my self –
His bowed head
And crucified arms
Draw me closer.
I open my eyes and arms
And float to him like
A flicked eyelash –
Full of wishes.
I cannot close my eyes.
His red marbled arms –
In a shallow V –
Point to his empty heart
And I mourn for his
Lack of moisture.
I cannot close my eyes.
I am his pupil now,
And I see myself
And I see the world.
I cannot close my eyes.
Invisiboy II
His tall, gaunt body
Is so removed from mine;
Black cloth stretched tight
Over his thin nothing
Highlights his narrowness.
And behind the glasses
His eyes lack lids –
Leading him to see
Too much.
The eagle of my heart
His black speck
Against my sky –
Reminds me of
The fact that I can fly –
All I need is to remember.
Mothwing
Come click in my ear,
Insect.
Give me the language,
Here in our garden.
I will pluck your words
Out of the air.
Each on a shimmer
Of dust –
In the stuttered sentence
Of your wings.
Your glittered vortex
Around my head
Tells the story.
I am ducking and swatting.
There is no light anymore.
Moth.
Old Person 1
I look down at your hollow,
Drying face –
Naked to the air.
And see the white sheets’ shallow
Rise and fall –
The tide is low today.
The snorkel from your mouth aids you,
Or does it? And –
Will any more lines be etched into
Your hollow, drying face?
Or will a long, drawn out beep
Be your final contribution to
This world?
Old Person 2
Good morning, it’s me.
You made it through the night –
And now, you can come home;
Mrs Johnson will be upset –
Your furniture and pictures get to stay;
She won’t have her view yet.
If ever.
Who knows when an angel might
Come to carry her off?
So many lines and queues,
But for now,
All we need to worry about
Is the traffic.
Old Person 3
I don’t even notice the other cars,
All I hope is that we have
Enough petrol to get home.
Wan stories of your past
Fill the car until I can
Feel them lapping at my chin,
Threatening to flow into my
Barren mouth, and
I dare not speak,
For fear of drowning.
Old Person 4
I see the stairs drag you up,
Up to the front door,
As it pulls you in to
The comforting twilight.
And I follow –
Pushing the stairs down
With my feet,
And closing the door behind me.
I feel the thought trickle through
The folds of my brain,
Picking up water with it
Until it gushes over my feet.
How long until you go back?
This Mosquito
I pray for you,
Lord Anopheles,
To leave those poor souls
And come for me.
To infect me with your parasites
As you take life from me.
So that I can swim in a fever
And dream.
Sweat and convulse in sickness,
Until I give in
And slip down
Slowly
Into the sweetest,
Eternal
Sleep.
This Cell
Here is this screaming cell,
Walls padded with concrete
And stylish paint;
A now single bed –
Designed for two –
Pitching, yawing and rolling on history.
And as it runs in
Under the door, this history –
Through the bottom of the sash windows
And we see ourselves in the past
And we refer to ourselves in the third person
We see the ceiling reaching down,
Like a demon from the whitest of heavens.
I reach off the side of my boat –
A hand full of history –
Bring it to my mouth,
And spray its stain onto aforementioned wall
As my cage of ribs closes me in.
This won’t hurt a bit
This music
And this smell of me…
I remember that sweet anesthetic,
The mask willingly over
My sweet, infant mouth
As I slipped down.
And I search for an image –
A simile is only a smile –
With I.
A red bus hurtles through
These black dirty streets,
The flowers thrown before it
Reduced
Oxidized
And rusted
Into the tar.
I dance in all of my disillusions
And remember
These shock-value little children
Bleeding from their eyes and mouths.
I come upon the MindChild,
Bleeding indiscriminately from his
Shallow, envied chest –
He was under a sage’s tree before,
And before that he was nowhere –
Unneeded and unfulfilled;
Sleeping in his parents’ arms.
He needs me desperately.
Afraid, I approach;
And his mouth is a myriad of shapes
I cannot understand.
Weak, he lies down
And I find myself staring down
At the raised highways of his ribs.
He is so sticky
And sweet.
Would his breath even mist a mirror?
The press of a thumb
Splays his ribs
And I see the arrhythmia of his heart.
If only I had it in me –
To reach in and pray for it to keep still.
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