The air hung heavy,
as death approached.
Felt the sharp tip, of a bayonet,
where the umbilical-cord began.
Couldn’t dream in grey for weeks,
was all white and black.
Paralysed by possibility and impossibility,
reality began, to feel real again.
Rotated on spits, spitting oil,
from a skinned-corpse.
Sold the tongue and teeth,
to the next client.
The expression on the iron-hook,
hung from the roof of the mouth,
looked like he died, terrified.
Boiled, scalded, blow-torched,
skinned and displayed,
all day, by the roof of the mouth,
on a meat hook, eyes cut out,
leaving open orbits, portals to the back of the skull,
being visible.
Sitting on a wet, wooden counter,
awaiting further instructions.
To not upset someone,
somewhere, somehow,
with the speed of speech, today.
Pulled the ribcage apart,
on the counter,
chopped the bone, with a meat-cleaver.
Wrapped and handed, to heavy man,
with obvious psoriasis
and probable hypertension,
was in, the at-risk categories.
Natural reform came,
karma’s wheels turned.
His favourite poem by Yeats, was called,
‘I wandered lonely, as a cloud’.
Grey-black hair,
all the traits of someone,
who sat in a chair,
for over thirty years.
Misshapen, asymmetric,
left hungry, purposefully.
A bearded, wax-jacket, gave up.
What is the price of freedom?
from tyrants and the perverse-minded,
with power to abuse,
when they see fit to do so,
for their own gain.
T’would not think, ourselves so,
gag-reflexes bound and sold.
An avaricious skeleton,
guilty of legal crimes,
mathematical brain-cells,
went up in flames,
in the middle, of a busy road.
Everybody became a potential enemy,
long before, right now.
Almost chair-bound, at sixty,
blind in both ears,
deaf in both eyes.
Arms winding, never-ending,
like a coil or cogs in a clock,
leaking onto dry hands.
Before the suicides
and the poor-unfortunates not fit,
for revival, were identified.
Doomsayers,
extremes, cock-fights for supplies,
to halt time,
for certitudes, in the chaos of uncertainties.
The tide coming ashore,
not knowing how high.
A big man in a cap,
stepped up, to the mark
and brought a God out of retirement,
even though, some resented it.
Some gave up,
before the races again.
Misfits died of the madness,
of their own accord,
sties in the eye of the storm.
Reversions of masculinity, to previous forms,
crushed by the weight, of lip-service
and lack of opportunities.
Pages of notices, improved dying circulations.
Writing for the future.
A black-eyed alcoholic,
held a grudge,
until it gave him a heart-attack,
from the self-inflicted pain,
provided an excuse for the expression,
of unresolved aggression.
Engraved memories of years earlier,
lighting oil-wick lamps,
drinking whiskey from flasks,
looking out of windows,
onto pitch-black roads and streets.
An arch-black cad,
teat-oozing,
stood with teeth glowing,
watching so-called, friends and angels,
drown in the rivers.
Walked on the bodies,
smiling to safety,
grinning, glinting.
Flapped to their deaths,
in tweed blazers, powerless, abscess.
Criminals or addicts,
Where is the line?
Incarcerated or supported?
Or perpetual, social damnation,
before death, at a young age.
Accusations of isms or phobias
and fashionable prefixes of the time,
to control and capitalise upon,
for someone.
Targets, targeting, targeted.
A rat’s face,
cried over an empty coffin,
when spectators were around.
The whole show,
streamed for fewer and fewer,
which eventually started to matter,
waking up from years of sedating practices.
From ego-syntonic to ego-dystonic.
Placed faith in false gods,
that evaporated with money,
left in rooms, with nothing but walls
and experiences of living, never experienced.
Came for the vulnerable,
to cull, mercilessly.
Broken,
by-products of inequality first,
self -service and empty buildings.
Opening morning shutters,
in the sunshine,
when it’s all over.
New social and economic orders,
where all, of the earth’s inhabitants,
are placed, firmly first.
We knew,
we would, get through this.