Poem: 'Angels Of Anarchy'

ANGELS OF ANARCHY /

LEARNING

TO LIVE

WITH FRAGMENTATION

“she is standing on my eyelids

...she sinks into my shadow

like a pebble against the sky”

(from “Capitals De La Douleur”

by Paul Eluard - 1926)

watching
the moon rise over the Headrow
with blood caking my sleeves &
hair dark tangles of sweat & scum,
moon coming up from the bottom of the sea
while the sun’s still stitched to the sky,
from double shadows I see gravity
and tides gobbling at the horizon,
an afternoon’s shoplifting and when
I wake crabs are crawling from my mouth,
the smell of dead pigeons hangs in the dust
& all exits are blocked

in the red light from the dashboard
my mistress hands me the knife,
she wears a carnelian in her fly, her
needle extracts the moth from my tongue
where its eggs are laid beneath my skin,
the moon sheds blood over the Headrow
while I dissolve in double shadows

I extract the eggs beginning with
my female parts, & we split the tips,
dragged into marble-white moonlight,
she reaches out her hand to pluck my heart
beating and pumping blood where it’s
grooved by her 6” nails,
I dissolve in her breath

watching
the moons rise over the Headrow
where the street is on fire and
blood seeps under every door,
the smell of dead pigeons
hangs in the dust ...





Published in:
‘NO no.7’ (USA - October 1988)
‘GRUE MAGAZINE no.11’ (USA - Nov 1989)
‘TEMPUS FUGIT no.2’ (Belgium - Feb 1990)
‘POWER LINES’ (Personal Chapbook / Unibird Publ) (Oct 1988 -UK)
‘THE RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY: THE BEST SF POETRY OF 1990 CHOSEN BY THE SF POETRY ASSOC’ (USA - October 1991)
and ‘EUROSHIMA MON AMOUR’ Hilltop Press (UK-Oct 2000)