HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION

genome twists the 

follicle makes the 

melatonin whitens the 

balance falters the 

heart quickens the 

life shrivels the 

penis squirms the 

scrotum tightens the 

diaphragm hiccups the 

hand grasps the

KICKED IN THE HEAD BY A HORSE

i.m. IT

A police horse. Horseshoes. Metal. A riot helmet. Hooves.
Knock, knock. Broken jaw. Fetlock. Mane. A splintered fibula.
Minor injuries. Bruises. A booted shin. Accident & Emergency.
Temporary loss of vision. Stroke. Strike. A heart attack.
Knock. Shattered humerus. Who's there? POLICE. A bust Yale lock.
Fingers in a door jamb. A fat lip. Torn eyelid. Lesions.
These are polished heroes on parade. Medals. The door on the chain.
Community trust award. Shield. Riot squad. Boots. Stampede.
Bust. A police horse. Halter. Stirrup. Bit. Neck. Reins. Noose.

INTEMPERANCE AND BUSINESS TROUBLE

In The City, sunlight turns the air to melted ice-cream
sending city bankers to the ale house for their lunch
to souse the fires with Staropramen. Thermometers pop
at the sound of the trading bell and seeping buboes 
weep in the underarms of short sleeved linen shirts.

This one, three sheets gone, makes a gamble he can drink
the afternoon dry. The afternoon responds with rain.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

after Van Gogh

A difficult rebirth. The body
still bound in the cave, unreturned
to the sunlight and drowned
in linens. His skin, waxed
with burial oils, is greyed,
more in tone with the walls
of the tomb than the fields of corn
outside. But it is the empty eyes
where the true horror lies.
Lazarus is dead and alive. The sister,
Martha, throws her arms up, just 
as distressed as praising. 
Does she welcome her brother 
out to the dawn or attempt  
to keep the madness in?
What is she scared of? Knowledge?
If death isn't final then all bets
are off. Is she ashamed or annoyed?
She forked out good money
to put him to rest. She grieved,
Had begun to get used
to not carrying after him. Now 
Lazarus has returned and not.
Life does not fill easily
the liquid flesh. He looks like work.
A monster. The neighbours will talk.

Some think the artist is present,
that the face on the corpse
is his own. That he is warming
himself from the Saint–Paul asylum
for a second life. But he does
not return to the sunflowers fully.
The body seems uncertain
of its ability to stand. It brings
us to Mary, who stands in the shadows,
her back to the viewer, seemingly
wearing the tomb. She who prayed,
who sent for jesus to save
her brother, only for him to arrive
too late. Where is he now?
The Messiah? His absence is genius.
A reminder that miracles
outlive the miraculous. A sister
enslaved to her brother. Another
unsure of what she's done,
retreating and reaching a little
for this simulacrum. This Lazarus
come back from the dead.

LAST REFUGE OF THE CRACKPOTS

That tall house on the left, up there,
is where they shut them up; the cracked
and their lolling, jabbering tongues,
talking all the time about their lives,
refusing to perform the simplest routines
like being nice. They shut them up,
with sticky–tape and glue on all the doors
and windows, they couldn't let their thoughts
escape on an unsuspecting public;
the sexually depraved, the rippers and strippers,
the queers, the whippers, jack–booted
women in lumberjack garb, the different, 
the anyones doing anythings to anyothers.
INSERT PENIS HERE! Not just them; the mad,
the almost mad, the angry, the sad,
the disabled, the foreigns, the wogs, the thinkers,
anyone who thought, the drunks. The house was tall
to catch their dreams. At night they had them.
Outside you could hear them shouting
bits of language — Das Kaninchen ist unter
den Fernseher! Die Katze ist auf dem Tisch!
Whackjobs, the lot of them, learning a thing
like that! But, night, it was like the house glowed,
a soft rainbow warming the evening air around it,
spotting celestial bodies through darkness encroaching.
Now they've gone. That tall house on the left,
up there, is where they shut them up.