Plum Pud

What’s for afters?

Let me give you a secret

Whose truth will stick

Like a pip in your throat;

An innocuous poision,

For the fleshy sweet cherry

Is all there is to it; (for years you have so believed)

So that the truth of it chokes you

Evokes in you a rage –

This bitter dessert!

Til you find a way to spit it out -

Up and out – and then you’ll drown

Yourself in custard

And merrily eviscerate those who must have

Asked for it by being honest.

And congratulate yourselves on your normality

As truth germinates yet in the dirt at your feet.  

Head Space

Bright fizz on my tongue.

A Belch deflates the squeeze:

Organs swelling - might pop like tight balloons

Ice spheres, vanilla.

Chill slipping into gut: 

Violent ice upon the cranium booms

A night of promise.

Calamine kisses skin:

Incessant burn; itching irritation 

Headiness of pine.

The glow of cooling wood:

Iron embers, a fierce red invasion 

The pristine turquoise.

Salt and vinegar breeze:

The crashing strike; catastrophe on sand

Halcyon mint tea.

A Sanguine star anise:

The Oesophagus burns bitter rancid

A raspberry love.

Choc’late joy; mallow soft:

Electrifying stab at exposed nerves

Thrilling certainty.

Cognizance of error: 

Exist in serene silence 'midst the curves.

Clownfish

Are you a clown

Or are you a fish?

I wish I knew

How to catch you at it

The bright orange nose beguiles while

You remain ethereal:

How do you survive out there?

A funny fellow who

Enchants to calm; a zing in the turquoise blue

But still, scales on bones

Miles from the anemone,

You’ll avoid getting nipped until the shark looms wide

Then you’re fucked

Teeth

Teeth

The severity of kindness is a myth

Use your teeth

But not to tear the hopeful heart from prostrate ribs,

I want to see the enamel before it bites me.

So, what bit you?

Before you turned to grace the stage, what

Made you turn,

To learn how

to discard the red cape - to

sharpen your fangs on the Hunter’s knife?

I thought it was me? No, surely not!

You went away; you passed the audition

While I waited nervous as a fox.

About to get snapped up in steel

I wanted to peel you

from my bones.

(Once, you wore my pelt around your neck – but only when

The weather suited

Now you disputed

The legitimacy of my skin; the quality; my worth.)

I raised my white flag but to a scientologist:

I didn’t belong

It all went so wrong.

Can I get your autograph, Hollywood movie star?

The ink won’t dry but I’ll try not to smudge it

Or is that how I fudged it?

All those years, should I just

have let it run?

See what lines formed on the page and

Joined you on stage?

I thought that only if you’d smile;

Would I relax the bile.

The severity of kindness is a myth

See my teeth.