Swollen
there's the brow furrowed downward
like chewed-up tobacco
shuffling street urchins
dressed up like diagrams
anatomically correct
but the whole figure's lame
stock street documentary footage
freeze-frozen each frame
the dust and the scratch
whole lives on lay away
and the crackle and hiss
of golden sections
each curve contorted
/out of breath
the cigarette burns
whole scars tick boxes
large logos on the chests
of belly-swollen orphans
and black third-world children
tongues fixed accute angles
from lips to the glass
so large we all see it
so dense we can't pass
the whole mouth is frothing
with lines of grey teeth
soil's eroded
frantic, like hang men's feet
the stench is suspended
shouting mouths as they cough
hive mind synthesised
as they hold arms aloft
when they sent the s.o.s.
the whole floor was sinking
when i received the telegram
they laid beneath the water
when they sent the s.o.s.
it was aready over
when i received the telegram
not even women and children
they were all beneath the water
eyes swollen and blue
Permafrost
we need to cut our ties
knee-deep in the one way system
the trains still run on time
and the pain of adulthood
flows freely through gorges
across somerset and the town
memories burnt in like bridges
raised and returned to the ground
aquaducts overflow
with cascades of moss
hanging, ornamental
between sheets of frost
rooftops bird-calling
to the ground, from the sky
from the rooftop to the heavens
bankrupt, but alive
the roads caked in flesh
and the flesh sealed tight
picked off scabs with shovels
before the glue binds
sunburnt from the neck down
oaks made of skin
pock-marked and perforated
needle punctures within
leather is glazed
with the sweat of the cow
moving behind sheets
in the dark, on your own
sails cut down and covered in lime
the hull and the cabins filling with brine
no stone to preserve
and no eye for eye
no skin is found broken
but you still die
