Outwards
from a molten core,
a
fiery heart to which all hearts draw,
leaving
other hands to fettle
to
lick the walls of liquid metal.
A
hearth surrounds with fierce grate
a
ponderous flow of silicate
which
floats a plate so gently curved
where
some are saved and some are served
and
on this dish we'll find a spread
of
all things upward from the dead.
Past
hubbling bubbling pockets black,
through
toiling tubes that suck them slack.
From
carbon to calcium, marrow dry bone,
look
at what's been set in stone.
Time's
passing fragments firmly stuck
where
bodies marinade in muck
and
splash the wheels of the circling truck;
death
then life, eat and fuck
live
then die, fuck and eat
ad
infinitum, and its repeat.
We
reach the playground in the mud
which
boys have filled with dry grey blood.
Will
mother laugh at how they played
or
damn them for the mess they made?
We
reach the burrows of clanking worms
who
rattle us round the languid turns.
Follow
the tracks of the tunnelling train
and
maybe you'll come back round again.
In
pallid carriage, avoiding sun
it's
none for all and all for none.
Climb
the ladders, climb the seams
To
papered pockets full of dreams.
Up
spine, up belly, up back, up vein
To
a grey and sloshing brain
Where
the head-case bookcase fills each shelf
With
blank-paged manuals of the self.
Rising
onward as before;
one
man's roof, another man's floor
To
the station's coursing crowd
whose
feet drum chaos loud and proud
And
for all that chasing, all that stress,
their
motion tallies to motionless.
Look!
Above us. The One True Light
The
sun we sang of in the night.
A
grubby shaft
A
rising draft
A
gap gapes open as we pass.
The
light diffracts through dripping glass
held
by a lost and desperate clutch;
a
hand forced to extend too much.
Baptising
memory in lament,
to
splash the head of time long spent
with
heart and cloth and spirit rent
such
cost for so little consequence.
Past
one cocked knee so harshly bent,
lies
a lonely man on a warming vent.
