Over the mountains, over the seas, climbing to great heights,
Pummelling clouds, spreading fear, a fierce and fiery sight,
Collecting the souls of evil ones as they slip from their last great sleep,
Thrashing limbs and writhing tongues, oh, listen to them weep! -

And the train speeds on and the darkness grows and screams rent the foetid air,
Pain and grief and tortured eyes describing their black despair,
For evil’s come for evil and there is no place to hide,
The tunnel of black looms up ahead for the evil ones who’ve died,

And the train in its grim death journey takes souls to the gates of hell,
And the blast from its echoing whistle is matched by its clanging bell,
And the terror of the damned leaves a trail of fog behind,
Curdling, ebbing, flowing, like the gasps of an evil mind,

And the resonant call of that whistle mocks their pitiful fear,
The darkness draws around them, the tunnel is too near,
And the pounding pistons sing with glee, a thunderous choir of the cursed,
And the gates of hell are opening, and the damned can see the worst …

Sept. 2011

The Smile
Dropped with the rain
Blew in the cracks between stones
Grew with the roots of trees and their Sap
Chlorophyll
Branches
Swept through the orchards and into the fruit,
Curdled the love between
Maiden and man
Deformed all the children
Cursed the sun and took its light
Mirrored itself
On ideas of despair
Destruction
Wrong-doing,
Shut off God,
Instituted Babel-

The Smile was Happy
In its’ success,
Grinned
(Sinisterly)
Like all good smiles do

And watched the world burn.

5/5/00

Came alive.

Slipped
Into that puddle of darkness at the bottom
Emerging
Glistening and unexpected -
A trap to be sprung,
A naked snarl in a well of walls

Best at night time

When the rooms have opened their ears
The doors have eyes
Silence is listening and
The hands are OUT,
Monsters await,
Ghosts are invisible,
The back tingles,
Fear emerges,
Thoughts are taken
Hijacked
Corrupted

The spirit wilts

And the brain screams -
‘Die! Die!’

And the brain screams -
‘Die! Die!’

And the brain screams -
‘Die!’

And the brain screams -

Evil looms,
Film replays,
Stories shout
OUT !

Stories shout
OUT !

Stories shout
OUT !

Stories shout -
Memories half-remembered
Half-suppressed
Crowd into dreams
Half-forgotten
Half-thought
Dead
As the night presses in
Ears hum like electric cables
Eyes see nothing
Eyes see nothing -
Eyes see -
Eyes -

- body feels
STRANGE!
All around

Body feels
STRANGE!
All around

Body feels
STRANGE!

All around………..

Body feels

STRANGE

STRNGE

STRNEAG

6/4/00

But not before HIS bottom
Had been torn off,
The flesh stripped
Searing from the bone
In a bloodied mass of foam and guts
Spewed into the heart of the bowl.

The toilet sucked and sucked,
And with a screech and a squelch
He disappeared,
Sucked ’till his eye-teeth
Dropped out
And then his skull
Imploded
And then

All gone.

Who was he?
Some say he was a madman
Verging on the edge of genius,
Too strong for the world,
This world,
Let it slip,
His reality,
Tore into that other reality
And won.

Christ, I hope not,
For there but for the grace of God -

5/5/00

Struggled to get out,
Beat off light,
Grew wings and flew,
Screeched its’ name to the stars and forbade them illuminate its abode,
Grew terrible in its Almightyness,
Thundered across the valleys,

Beat at the windows
The doors
The chimney breasts

Rattled and shook
The gratings round the man’s brain
Sapped Her spirit
Terrorised their hearts

The little ones,
All cuddly and goo

Spun in the everlasting night
As the wind whipped up
And morals whipped down
And the man carried an axe
And the woman screamed

‘Do it!’ ‘Do it!’

And the woman screamed

‘Do it!’

And the woman screamed

‘Do!’

And the woman screamed -

And the curse stretched wide its grin
And the axe fell
And the madness blew

And, Oh!

There was blood everywhere

And, Oh!

There was blood !

And, Oh!

There was !

And, Oh! -

And only the curse was left,
Half remembered,
So tiny in the daylight.

‘Who could possibly have done this thing ?’ they wondered,
Frightened by the improbability of it all -

But the curse was already
Grinning its way to another part of the world.

5/5/00

Come, stranger, your buckling legs are too slow,
Your face as wan as milk within a pail:
We have a distance on this path to go,
A journey you did promise without fail.

Stranger! To sit and weep is misery -
Yours, not mine, for this way I know too well:
Take heart, you’ve been unchained, set free,
By the faint tolling of that distant bell.

Stranger ! Your dream is done and now we leave:
Let others weep for you, let others grieve!

2001

Darkness has no weight, and its smile was as empty as the air.
Watching it haunt me, dancing,
I fancied it had a purpose,
That if I left it long enough it would go away.
But the moon revealed a sinister side;
The face – that was mine – turned,
The lips curdled into a snarl,
The dance a march, stomping.

Night-time became my prison;
Stuck inside, in brilliant light, buried and burned in brightness,
I yearned for the half-grey twilight,
For the softer shades on corners,
For the plump heaviness of depth.

Outside, the city roared;
I had no part of it, but gazed out as a stranger must gaze on another world.

Who would hold me from my shadow?
None, but me;
My only weapon, light.
I slept; but my dreams were fractured, shattered,
The city’s call oppressive,
The moments dragging,
The hours, dead.
I paced; I turned;
Threw myself into books;
Marched the square space, seething.

I would damn light!
Without light there would be no dark!

The moments mounted into terror,
A fear of stillness,
For in stillness shadows crept,
A fear of sleep,
For black behind my eyes began to move,
A fear of tiredness,
For I was getting weak.

Shadows: how they crawled,
Always out of sight, resting, testing,
Forever waiting,
Breathing,
Slipping,
Climbing,
Pouncing,
Disappearing,
Flat and tiny snakes, violent, chasing.

Light!
Light kept me alive,
But light was killing me,
Throbbing into my eyes,
Glaring into my brain,
A sea of pain, drowning me.
I paced;
I swore;
Grasped at the half-torn madness,
Fluttered at my dying sanity.

A shadow!
Tiny, slithering, flitting and flickering,
It hugged the far corners,
Eyeing me.

Keep back!

It made no move,
Paused in its feeble strength,
Holding, weighing,
Delicately testing,
And now it began to grow,
Faintly, slowly,
Battling the steady light,
Feeding, breathing, absorbing, cursing,
Fighting its way to a bitter strength,
Watching, expanding,
Quietly laughing,
A liquid pool of black washing, lapping,
Endlessly consuming.

The floor shrank;
Slowly, mightily,
The darkness cursed its way forwards,
Touching and eating,
Irresistible,
As the lights flickered and a gloom descended …

20/07/08

And the wind’s blowing fierce
And then it blows slow,
The trees bend uneasy,
Leaning to and fro

And the fields have found a feeling
That sucks me from my gaze,
And I’m living in the darkness
Where only darkness stays,

Flying to the Frightening,
Lost within strange fear:
I turn my head and look away -
The Frightening is too near.

Dear God, please deliver us from evil,
For our enemies are more evil than ourselves
And we are alone in the world:

And dear God, please cast the shadows black
That we might hide,
For in our hiding’s strength,
And we are not so strong:

For our purpose is strange
And not to be seen,
And our faces darken beneath the sky:
We are a proud people,
And have done no wrong.

Dear God, thank you for our neighbours,
For our neighbours have given us the courage to fight:
Without them we would be nothing,
But with them we are warriors,
Filled with hate.

We are Victims, Lord,
And being victims we know
That We Are Right,
For the Oppressor is always wrong.

We take our purity from our oppression, Oh Lord,
And from this we also take our strength of purpose:
No one can deny us our Innocence,
And we shall kill for you with this in mind.

It is our duty to inflict pain and terror -
Being innocent, we are above the law.

We shall do your will:
Thy Will be done, Oh Lord,
Let us kill in your name.

We shall saw off the heads of our enemies,
Slash open the bellies of the pregnant,
Stick glass in the genitalia of those we despise.

We are above them all, God,
For they are a nothing.

Let us shoot from a distance, Oh Lord,
The young and the old,
And near to, let us hold parties
To watch our enemies writhe and die in agony.

Our Generals are proud,
And defend us against the wicked:
Let us praise our Generals
And let us howl with outrage
At all accusations of their evil.

Lord, we are eternal Victims,
And you have been merciful,
And made that clear:
We can do anything with impunity,
For victims have no responsibility.

Lord, we thank you for our lives,
And even for our despair, which has coloured us so deeply:
For without that despair we would not try,
And in trying we have discovered our souls.

Our souls are dark, Lord, and beyond recognition -
We live in their darkness, and seem unable to change.
Our darkness has become a habit, Lord,
And we have become proud of that habit.

Lord, we are sinking,
Hiding our self-hatred in new, bright shops and the pretence of democracy:
But our evil will not go away,
For we are a cursed people.

Deliver us from self-revelation, Lord,
For we are proud and would rather die.

Our scientists have invented a weapon
Which, though imprudent,
Can destroy the world:

Let us pray.

July 2001