Silence Exile and Crumpets

FOR IAIN

2013-05-17T22:34:26Z

A poet cannot lie. Must tell the fact
that people go, in pain, and cannot stay.
Last month, last week, last hour of last day.
He took my hand. And my voice might have cracked

but his did not. A sort of madcap grace
he had. We used to think it was the drink.
He'd laugh, be serious, dance on the brink
of parapets. No mask behind his face.

He wrote, once, of a gentle alien spy
observing, liking. Someday going back.
That wasn't him. He has no chance to pack
some souvenirs. He won't leave, he will die.

Cheeks slightly gaunt, his shy sardonic smile
haunts, like his rich sad sweet roccoco style.

OK - these are needed, but my harshest work. Trigger to the max. Rape.

2013-05-10T22:08:43Z

THE FRIEND

He doesn't see the problem. They are friends
she's often said so. She is lonely too.
He's bought her dinner. Now why can't she do
this one small thing? The messages she sends

are mixed. Her kiss goodbye tickles his cheek.
He holds her hand too long. Sees in her eyes
a feeling he should stop, apologize.
He's really had a fucking awful week.

It happens. And she cries. How typical.
It's what she wanted, really. He was drunk.
She wouldn't like him if he were a monk.
He's angry that she cries, leaves, doesn't call.

The friendship's over. And he's feeling sad.
He loved her, but all bitches are quite mad.

THE UNCLE
He feels connected to each one. He knows
he'll change each life forever, mould each mind.
And be the most considerate they'd find
to teach them love. It's sad that each one grows

and leaves. Or he leaves first. Better that way
because the guilt's on him. As at the start.
His tenderness for each sweet girl's young heart
is more than he can find the words to say.

Actions speak louder. His inquiring hand,
creeps up their leg. His tongue invades an ear.
He whispers darling, sweetheart, oh my dear.
After, he'll introduce her to the band

give her a better mark, or buy her tea.
And no harm done at all that he can see.

THE MONSTER
He does not hear their screams. He masturbates
Until red sore.Then pulls a velvet rag
Across the glans. He'll use it as a gag
A little later. Underneath the floor

His special room. He saw her in the street
Pulled her into his car. He's impotent
So far with her. He's worried that she meant
Those things she said. And so he tied her feet

To keep her safe. She's such an attitude
some men, not him, would hurt her, break her jaw
so she could not say such things any more.
He tears her clothes off, he prefers them nude

Takes her downstairs ignores her gasps and tears
Some of his girls have been with him for years.

Just Limbering up for the evening's writing

2013-05-08T21:06:48Z

LOVESICK 2

Wake from a drowse, there's soreness in my throat
from dryness, and it's also in my heart.
I fear it's love again. The feelings start
and go on like a headache. There's a note

that echoes slightly off-key in my brain,
and breaks all music. It is in my ears
like wax that sticks and itches, disappears
like dripping in the kitchen sink, like pain

in teeth it throbs and vanishes, i think
it's gone for good, can't even quite recall
just what it felt like. Then it's in the hall
slamming the door to say it's home. i blink

It's come, it's gone. And so i say her name.
And sickness goes. Love stays. They're not the same.

Another poem for the new collection

2013-05-05T23:43:32Z

SESTINA OF FADING LOVE

Love fever kept me warm all winter long
in cold that echoed ache in all our bones
an ache of sadness that was not just love
Love part of it, the treble to its bass.
The spring is late. And thrusting from the ground
buds leaves emotions, green, warm steady pulse

My songs of love burn with a hectic pulse
Such fevers never last for very long
their heat helps forge new work, its shining ground
eye-dazzling with a powder made from bones
that fever arched then broke. My heart-pain bass
that throbs with decorations made from love

declaring all the compliments of love
that shimmered with the winter sunshine's pulse
and skittered elegant above the bass
of love that cut me deep all winter long
but now lets loose its pressure from my bones
as spring melts snow that lay upon the ground

as dew comes up as dawn mist from ground
a gentle smoke recedes and so does love
that's left a tenderness in all my bones
sweet pain still there. A finger on my pulse
can find it there. It's faint. And I still long
to have my ears blasted by passion's bass

As when sports cars drive past and sudden bass
hits like a wind that lifts you from the ground
a second. When love starts to fade, we long
for all the pain and sweetness of new love
cheek kiss that flutters with a gentle pulse
that twitches organs cradled in our bones

Intimacy deeper in us than our bones
heart echoes in our brains, the deep blood bass
that gives my work its slow and steady pulse
However flighty, rooted in that ground
When love fades, it's the words, the beat I love
Love does not fade entirely. I still long

when I am bones laid deep under the ground
soprano tenor bass will sing this love
Heartbeat a failing pulse – these words live long

My books

2013-04-25T08:31:23Z

Later this year, Plus One will be publishing REFLECTIONS volume 2 of RHAPSODY OF BLOOD. People who haven't yet read RITUALS, the first volume. may want to think about getting caught up.

EPILOGUE 1

2013-04-14T23:17:28Z

A sense of painted eyes and dark red hair
Across a room; perhaps we met and spoke.
I sipped my tea, not sure why I was here,
noticed as you do some friend of friend
you may not meet again. I sipped and left
I wanted to get home and write some verse.

Her face sometimes appeared, when, writing verse
I thought of beauty. Or perhaps her hair
the shade precise I needed. I was left
with her in mind. Lifted my phone and spoke.
Talked easy as to any older friend
A week or two, and then she moved from here

to other cities. I stayed scribbling here
sestinas, sonnets, other sorts of verse
She read them sometimes, Facebook was the friend
shared them with her. Showed pictures of her hair
distracting me from verse. We never spoke
wrote once or twice. We'd met and then she left

Her image was the trace that she had left
You listen to my verse, and you will hear
whispers and traces. But I never spoke
nor thought of her, except that in my verse
red dress, sly smile, her finger twining hair
flash past, no more than any other friend

My verses speak so much of friends. This friend
I hardly knew. There's not much story left
I travelled, rang her, met for lunch. Her hair
was as remembered. There's no tale to hear.
Held hands a little. And I knew my verse
would change, and she'd be all the words I spoke

A little while. It was of her I spoke
Said Aphrodite, muse, but always friend
teasing a hint of love in every verse
Knowing I would not see her soon, I left.
She was so far away, my life was here.
We kissed just once. My finger touched her hair.

These words I spoke the best of what is left
Chose friendship even though there's aching here
turned into verse, but ah! Her russet hair.

People will remember all the sonnets from the autumn - this will go with them

A serious blog post I wrote about Thatcher in 2005

2013-04-08T21:40:28Z

The Thatcher years were misrepresented at the time, and have found many apologists since. Which just goes to show that a lot of people will put self-interest ahead of truth and ignore what was actually going on most of the time.

What everyone forgets is that the rise and rise of Margaret Thatcher was politically contingent and not inevitable. Had, for example, Wilson’s debilitating brain disease kicked in a year or two later, Callaghan would not have been able to scoop the succession and be so colossally inept. Had Dennis Healey been the leader that confronted Thatcher every day in the Commons, the sense that Labour was doomed like a rabbit in headlights would never have crept up on us. Had the Labour leader been someone who would talk frankly to the union bosses about the likely alternatives they faced, rationality might have returned to Left politics. Had Michael Foot’s vanity not been so great that he acquired a leadership for which he was even more inadequate than Callaghan, Thatcher would have had proper principled opposition during the Falklands War. Had Owen and Williams and Jenkins put principle and party and allegiance ahead of being stroked by a fundamentally Conservative media, there would not have been a fourth party to split the anti-Thatcher vote.

And so on. It was not inevitable even that she become Conservative leader, let alone that she win the election, or the one after that. Part of the myth promulgated at the time was just this, the idea that she was the archangel of history and that everything that happened was part of some vast upheaval built into things from the dawn of time.

It was also a myth that the intellectual balance had swung to the Right. If you look at the rightwing intellectuals much praised at the time, they are a sorry bunch. Roger Scruton is about the best of the bunch and he is a crazy, objectively considered. Milton Friedman’s economics have been largely discredited by their operations in the real world and Hayek’s claims about the coming dominance of evil statists have ended up as the justification of corruption and gangsterism everywhere he and Friedman have become doctrine.

This takes me inevitably to one of Thatcherism’s main claims to the high ground – privatization. I will acknowledge, because I am a truthful girl, that one privatization worked – British Telecom provided a better service, adapted to rapidly changing technology and became an international player. However, the same cannot be said for the privatization of the power companies, the water companies and above all the railways. Forcing hospitals to put cleaning contracts out to the cheapest tender has given the UK some of the dirtiest hospitals in the world and the epidemic of MRSA that helped kill my father and many like him. (Railways came later, but it was the gray Major acting as she would have done had she had time.)

There is a paranoid theory that one of the reasons why American insurance companies gave money to think tanks that put a lot of support into Thatcher is that they really really wanted to ensure that the NHS stopped working well.

Thatcher, given the claims of people like Hayek about coming dictatorship, was anything but a democrat. When it became clear that the inner cities were going to go on voting Labour even if she sold them council housing cheap, she simply abolished the GLC and various metropolitan councils. She couldn’t win at a local level, and so she took away the playing field altogether. Purely considered as an ethical choice, that stinks. And moreover, the very moment Labour gave us a London government again, the popular vote went to the man Thatcher removed by administrative fiat. (And there are problems with Livingstone, of course there are, but that is not the point here.)

Thatcher was prepared to govern by racism and homophobia when it suited her. Her handling of immigration was both inept and unpleasant; she made something of a hash of the epidemic; she played to the gutter on gay rights via Clause 28. Inadvertently, she helped reunite a gay movement which had spent two decades divided by gender.

She stopped pretending that things were fair and created a society in which looking after number one and screwing your enemies were legitimated as well as what actually happened. Ironically, the control freakery that is one of the worst things about Blair is a consequence of her. In a whole bunch of areas, from the smashing of the miners and the abolition of the councils to the decision to shelve rail and tube links to Labout constituencies in inner London, she made spite the order of the day. And she treated her own ministers with contempt and scorn – the only time I ever dreamed about her, I found myself shouting at her for her rudeness to other Tories.

She even got up the Queen’s nose.

And then there was the Council Tax – one of several occasions where Thatcher got people out onto the street burning things down.

She was in the right place to get some of the credit when Communism collapsed – along with Reagan she has to take much of the blame for the failure to help Eastern Europe and Russia acquire working civil society.

Above all, she destroyed hope for half the population. She wrecked the best bits of my adult life and turned half of my former friends into zombie yuppies obsessed with house prices and share issues. And she wasn’t actually all that good or cunning or clever – just lucky in some horrible ways.

The soundtrack for those years for me is always going to be ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials. When you hear people praise her, just play it loudly until you can’t hear them any more.

I wrote this some time ago and stand by every word

2013-04-08T12:01:36Z

She has been sick so long that we forget
how much we hate her still, how ever much
her sense of self grows vague, or out of touch
with her bleak legacy she seems. And yet -

there is no yet, no pity. She was not
the kind to pity, thought such feelings weak,
the rust that eats the iron. You might seek
in vain for mercy in her. She forgot

so many things before she lost her mind,
that markets are just people, that no war
is ever won, that what has come before
always returns, and not to be unkind,

and so, no mercy to her. Watch her breath
stutter and fade, then drink toasts to her death.

Why you can't bore from within if you are already outside...

2013-03-22T12:37:22Z

There is a small piece of background to the recent decision by the Press Complaints Commission that Julie Burchill's piece in the Observer was not an offence. (One of their arguments was, incidentally, that they can't look at cases where a group is defamed, even though some little time ago Lord Hunt, their chair, assured Trans Media Watch that they could.)

The anti-Leveson pack in the commentariat keep telling us that the PCC is not broken. that the Press can be trusted to self=regulate. The PCC does, after all, have lay members...

A few years ago back in 2008, one of the posts for lay members became vacant, and I applied. I was, after all, a respected author of books on popular culture. a reasonably well-known literary journalist, and a former deputy chair of the National Council for Civil Liberties, with a background in the Civil Service. I had references from a former editor of the Times and a Minister at the Home Office. ( My application mentioned that I was active in the causse of trans rights, but did not stress the wilder bits of my past, or views.) On paper, I looked really rather good.

I didn't even get an interview.

I mostly applied so that they could turn me down. on the assumption that one day, their having turned me down would be useful back story. This is that day.

Heldenleben

2013-03-02T23:31:11Z

We're tempted, always, to perform in role
fine-structured movie of our artist's life.
Lost job, dead love, surgeon's infecting knife
Damascus hammers that beat out our soul

to thin perfection. Every diary date
potentially a telling anecdote.
Love letters simple acheing passion wrote
quarried for epigrams. We celebrate

Wednesday's migraine, Tuesday's cassoulet
as myths of struggle. We are always on,
writing each moment down and when it's gone
rewrite it and improve it. Lovers say

they hope to get the transcendental fuck
we write of, but are always out of luck.

Wordless

2013-02-24T00:02:20Z

We talk of love so much; fucks we avoid
because it's hard to find the words that speak
of how she fingers me on an antique
chaise longue, of how she grows somewhat annoyed

when I cannot quite come until she licks
the scar under my breast. Her finger still
inside me, twisting, turning; as a mill
grinds pepper at your table. My cunt kicks;

I squeal a little. Claw her back. She bites
hard on my collarbone. The stiff brocade
upholstery rashburning thighs. We raid
Petrarch or Yeats to say how we lie nights

awake in yearning, well-fucked forge our own
articulation of a squeal or moan.

ACTAEON

2013-02-12T00:19:19Z

We do it to ourselves. With horse and hound
not knowing quite what it might be we chase
we come astounded to a sacred place
where she stands, naked. It is pain we've found.

A gesture and our mind and skin are torn
to tatters. It's that moment in a dream
when bliss turns sour, soft words become a scream
torn by our own teeth, gored by our own horn

and she who sets them on? It is not her
but our own lust. We turn this into rhyme
from cries of love and death. Yes, every time
and knowing what we'll suffer won't deter.

This verse bleeds ink from every bite and tear.
The joy that comes from love's end in despair.

MAZES

2013-02-11T00:29:26Z

The hedge is thick. Loose twigs lash at our eyes
-you'd think a gardEner would prune them neat.
My cheeks sting. There's a tangle at my feet
and in my head. And every lover tries

to walk this maze or others with some grace.
We do not blush to lose, but to be lost
embarrassing humiliating cost
of loving. We all end up in this place

dark and confused, unable to turn right
though people always tell us that's our way
to find the centre, the way out. It's day
or was just now, yet suddenly it's night.

I've walked for hours and hear her lonely cry.
Somewhere in darkness, she's as lost as I.

DEMOREST

2013-02-07T23:53:17Z

His study was the ice, how it would flow
slower than glass and cut beneath its weight
harder than diamond. Does not love or hate -
ice merely is. That's what he came to know

deeper than bones or breath. He went to war
and took his knowledge with him. War is ice
that grinds things down. He brought survivors twice
from wrecks smothered in cold. Went back once more

and three's the charm. Ice knew him, split. He fell
into its cold hard heart and falls there still.
He flows with it, held falling, ground until
his bones are crystal dust. His breath as well.

Cracked into crazy puzzles, winter's art,
puts splinters into every knowing heart.

A nice thing

2013-02-03T00:39:51Z

I lost much of January to vague cruddiness, grey skies and watching The Killing. Now I am actually ill, which usually improves my mood when melancholy strikes me - I had an amazing autumn for poems, even if the novel is going slowly and clearly my brain needed down time. Oh and there was Moore/Burchill and all of that.

Anyway, as you may know, the Locus Recommended Reading List came out, and RITUALS is on it. So that's nice.

WHALES

2013-01-28T23:28:00Z

A shadow inconceivable in size
darkens the water; then a smaller one.
My eyes are dazzled, not just by the sun.
A spout, a moment, then the whales rise.

A mother and a child, not hard to say,
but think of them in awe. A child that weighs
a ton at least. You watch it, as it plays
as gawky as a foal in its huge way

it leaps and splash. The water slaps its skin.
Imagine titan's whimper. Mother's bound
is elegant. She slips without a sound
from air to water. And again. They're in

a moment of instruction. Soon child's leap
is elegant as sunlight, soft as sleep.

Who watches the watchmen, who edits the editors - some ironies.

2013-01-16T20:52:49Z

Now I have listened to the Radio 4 Media show it's clear that several important points that I made were edited out. Thankfully the stuff about #transdocfail made it through. What was cut?

At one point I suggested that, while some of the tweets aimed at Suzanne Moore were undoubtedly indefensibly unpleasant, freedom of speech applies to Twitter trolls as much as to Julie Burchill - though the difference is that, if people choose to, they can report abuse to the Lords of Twitter and offending tweets may be taken down. As was Julie's piece, when people protested.

I responded to the 'at least there is a discussion point' on its second or third appearance with the remark - and I said I first made it forty years ago which indicates just how unoriginal Burchill's piece was - that no-one would say that republication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion made it easier to talk about anti-semitism.

When I suggested that someone at the Observer had thought, o Julie will stir things up, and commissioned that piece for that reason, and no other, the presenter said I couldn't know that was the case, to which I replied 'the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.'

I did explain part of why 'Brazilian transexual' was unfortunate and mentioned I had contacted Suzanne Moore to explain why to her - again, that was cut.

More if I remember more - but there are points where I sound nervous because they cut me in mid-word, something they did not do to the verbose Young.

Oh, and I was asked to comment on whether I thought people should be sacked. I said that an internal process was going on at the Observer and it would be contrary to natural justice to discuss that while it was going on.

Freedom of speech is a great idea - I don't think I got it.

BRONZE 3

2013-01-10T11:01:01Z

You turn the winter soil. Some months ago
Hawks roosted on the trees. You find a skull,
another, pelvis, thigh. White bones are dull
with mould and soil, but wash them. They will glow

almost translucent, like a shattered pearl.
Clean carefully with spirit. Let them dry.
Careful lest hungry bugs that occupy
Skull's dark recess creep out infest unfurl

a wave across your desk. And then bring paint
gold leaf a chain repurpose what was dead
as art by decoration. In your head
old pain is turned to verse. Or, so no taint

of death remains, furnace, poured wax – these may
turn shape to bronze, burn those dead bones away.

Dreamwidth

2013-01-03T10:07:28Z

Some time ago, I backed up the bulk of my LJ to a Dreamwidth account, but more recent attempts to back up entries always fail. I also have a WordPress blog as a backup, which is up to date. Does anyone know why attempts to back up this year into Dreamwidth always abort instantly?

NIGHTPIECE

2012-12-28T23:53:26Z

Dark city garbage alleys where dark mist
is smoke of burning hearts the city broke.
Swallows your heel-steps. There's a rasping croak
Obscene batrachian; burn on your wrist -

a thing unseen has touched you. Feel pulsebeat
race then slow down. Alleys are ways to fear,
you're not safe anywhere, but something here
is waiting. There is quicksand at your feet

pulling you down. The mist cloys in your throat
like poison candy. Decisions long since made
pursue you. In the dark a flicking blade
flashes with neon moonlight, and your coat

is suddenly in tatters. The wild hunt
is at your heels, will soon be at your cunt.

ENTITLED

2012-12-28T23:06:11Z

There's something missing in them. Not a hole
In brain or heart. Perhaps we'd say a flaw
in both, that lets them easily ignore
that others have a life, a mind, a soul.

There's things they want. Money perhaps or power
or just to say fuck you to all of life.
They take it with a bank, a prick, a knife.
Gloat minutes then are hungry in an hour

And do these things again. It is their right
they tell themselves. She brought it on herself
the poor are lazy. They're the source of wealth
of order manhood God. So, every night,

they turn their skins and raven. Wolves again
who tricked us into thinking they were men.

RETROUVE

2012-12-28T20:38:44Z

We think things lost. Sometimes they're memories
we know that there was something but a mist
stops us from knowing what it was. We list
all of the things it might be. None of these

we say and wonder. Sometimes it's a toy
worn out or left behind or just misplaced.
We don't know which. Our memories are erased;
the toy is gone for good. And yet, what joy

to open boxes find covered in dust
or cobwebs what was lost, and brush it clean
out in the open air. Or to have seen
the thing that triggers knowledge we can trust

to be lost memory at last come back
to fill space we did not see as a lack.

CATULLUS 63

2012-12-17T01:10:19Z

On reflection, highly triggery for some people.

Attis hurries. Runs barefoot,
takes a fast boat to Asia,
runs again.
Mad with Her love so that he feels no pain.
He loves.
Comes to Her woods and groves.
Then starts to cut
cut with the flint that cut
feet.
Cuts deep and fast.
The blood begins to flow.
She plucks the last
Bits of her former flesh
Out by the chords
No.
Takes off their weight
loses that weight.
So
And slash
No words for what she feels
new made at her own hand
blood gushes on the trampled earth
at this new birth
of who she is,
of what he was,
of who she will be,
what he cannot be.
Her hand
Suddenly delicate white hand
Seizes the tamborine
The little tintinabulinking
tamborine
the drums, the drums as white, the calfskin drums, drums of Her sacrifice
cut from the bull-calf.
Stretched
stretched
drum beaten by the white hand
the light hand
fierce.
She sings soprano, sopranino, mezzo mezzo to the band
of her new friends, her sisters of the cut
who beat the drums
and wave the tambourines
and dance upon the ground the bloody ground
the sound, the echo sound, the piercing sound
of Goddess rite.

Step forward, step back, one two three
Left, forward, right, back, one two three,
Stamp skip step, stamp skip step,
stamp skip and kick.
Step, stamp and kick.
We are the girls, kick,
girls of the cut, step
Cows for our Lady, stamp.
To her woods we go, step.
Far far from home, kick,
exiles for ever, left,
birds of a feather, back.
Sisters of cutting, kick.
Follow my lead, stamp.
Cast aside Love, kick
Watch Goddess laugh, left.
Hurry together, kick.
Dance to her house, right
Deep in the woods, stamp.

Where there are flutes, kick,
where Maenads shake it, back,
wild curly locks, left.
Cymbals clash, crancrancrancran
Drums beat, ratatata
Howl howl howl howl
Honour the goddess
One two and three, stamp
one two and three, kick.

Attis dances, Attis sings.
Attis new girled.
Howls. Howls. Ulualalalu
Drum ratata, cymbal ratat.
Up to the mountains
wild in the trance.
Out of breath out of mind fast stamping chorus
bleeding bleeding white
Drum ratatat
Cows moomoo ullalalu new
to the yoke
the goddess' yoke.
The goddess house.
Where they drop
drop
sleep
starved
emptied
and frenzy
done.

Glare of the morning. Sky burned clear.
Waking sun.
Line of light across the harsh rocks,
the dry land, the scrub land, the merciless sea.
Wild horses of the sun
chase shadows of the night.
And Attis
wakes.
Wakes in the arms
of the mother goddess of all gods.
Calm of frenzy
Awake
Fresh from cutting, fresh from dancing,
voice clear.
Looks out across the sea
and sings homesick regret.
Aria.
O patria mea
quanto mi costa
Distress
you made me you undo me
mother and mistress,
I flee you
as slaves flee.
Up to the high hills
the hills are so cold
the wild beasts shiver
among them am I
snuggling in dens.
Oh country,
mother and mistress.
Are you here, am I there?
You have high hills
where trees shake in winds.
This is my home
driven by frenzy
far from good people kind people gentle folk
High harsh hills.
I am not in the forum and I am not in the gym
I am not in the market place or running round the track
I am no more that person and will never more be him
I've left my home forever and I'm never coming back
Regret regret regret. Ullalulalu
What does she look like
what do I?
Woman – stamp
Boy – stamp
Husband – stamp
groom – stamp
girlfriend – stamp.
Wife- stamp
Eunuch -stamp.
Maenad -stampstampstam.

I was so cool
they loved me in school
the best in the gym,
they asked me to tea,
they turned on the fans,
they brought me flowers, so many flowers.
And that's all gone, ullalalu
up in the high hills.
Cut.
Like a slave
slave to the goddess.
Wild hair, and bleeding, cut.
Ullalalu
Among the pines
with boars and deer.
What have I done?
Ullalalu.
Mercy, mother, mercy. Hear my woe, ullalalu

The goddess heard.
Her lions roared
the long-maned lions who pull her chariot,
sweet chariot.
And said.
ROAR
ROAR
Drive Her Mad
With your Roar.
Whip her to frenzy with your lashing tails
that lash, that smash, that slash.
ROAR
let her feel claw.
So she's mad. Mad.
Then let her run mad fingers through your mane
your hair your lovely hair
your strong neck.

Goddess takes the yoke from off their necks
The lions howl, and prowl and yowl
There is a crackle in the undergrowth
it's lions seeking prey, tracking prey,
prey that runs from the hill
crosses the stream.
Running water running water
Make me safe.
Tracking Attis as she prays
kneels in the sand
looks across the sea.
White sand under delicate white knees.
And
They
Pounce,
Roar
In her Ear.
Drive her quite mad
Slave forever. Slave to the goddess.

Goddess, hear my plea
Goddess, stay away
Her but not me.
Attis but not me.
Ullalalu
Cut

SHOULD I MAKE THIS PUBLIC?

2012-12-15T01:25:43Z

Huckabee so-called man of so-called god
and Brian Fischer too say that no gun
would ever kill a child if everyone
said prayers in school. Dump stinking putrid blood

on all the praying heads of rightwing fools
They put guns in the hands of violent men.
It happens time and time and time again
that guns are used to kill. Not just in schools.

It's what they make guns for. And there's no prayer
has ever stopped a bullet. Only laws
take automatic rifles from the paws
of men who kill. And if they dare

use dead kids, god should send them both to hell.
Or fuck them both, and fuck their god as well.

MOURN

2012-12-14T23:59:30Z

Dead children, halfgrown flesh with bullet-holes
marks of explosion, not just torn apart
but hit so hard by air it stopped their heart
a moment between breaths. Pray for their souls.
Godless, I pray. Language is far too weak
there is no other word for what we feel
except reject religion, and still steal
its words, its attitudes. They're what we seek
ways of regret and hurt. So, always young,
always unfinished, taken from their lives.
There's nothing new to say. This verse derives
does not create. It's just the same old song
and what we need. While men shoot stab and kill
with other weapons, we will need it still.