The Telephone Voices

The phone stutters.
'Hello? Is ..... there?' A snake cackles.
Silence. Thoughts go hyper.
Finally, 'he's in hospital.
Private of course.' Tic toc.
'Hospi...tal?' A screwdriver tongue licks
fat, clueless lips.
Pause for gold.
'Why hospi...tal?' Eyes like drains
bloody as veins.

Questions marks flood the mouth piece
tumbling down the line.
'The liver sucked a problem.
It kicked balloons and venom.'
Nerves grow wings
in search of beta block traps.
'Liver?' Stirring two plus two equals,
'alcohol! Damned alcohol! Burn it!'
The operators ears turn blue.
Panic attacks jump up and down.

'How bad are the scars and blood?
Has the painting smudged?'
Clouds pass handcuffed in yawns.
'A wind almost sailed his ship
into the grave...'
Suffer in seconds, higher than hope.
'But his heart lives on
like a widow in stone.'
The telephone shines.
And dies...

@steven francis poems 1992

Dried Blood, Cold Flame

Miss Fury
come to my spot on the floor
where I lay still,
and see the shadow of my heart
settle on my phlemg'd breast bone.
Please me Fury,
click those delicate heels
toward that death idle whale before you
and try holding that split second shock forever.
Silence?
Or do you hear the earthly drum of breath
from my jellied pose?
In the wild time netween hope and funeral
I become newborn to a Mother beyond today.
Fury be still.

But come,
see the peace upon my leather mug
and watch as iron falls from my skin.
Here the floorboards are warm,
I breathe easy.
Tailored life,
a tic on this universe beast,
many bloods grow beneath grave and moon,
morbid little rats eternal.

Drag me to the valley of death,
from where I remember my stone lungs
kissed hard the dirty floor.
Cushion this speckled flesh
and hold it in white starched coils
before aunts and friends,
silly looking in their solemn courtesy
take me to my nest of soil and grace.

And 'tho I see you from chipped light
and hear peals of sadness
from chapel rows,
'tis better not that you see me
in my grand pantomime.
Better not that naked eyes
fall upon tail or claw
of the unimaginable Seas.
Fury feel a distant glow
of mortal ribbons,
and fold your tendons
into softer shapes.
We pretty phantoms,
we fat, contented dead
quickly forget our foetal comforts...

@steven francis poems 2008

Candy Closet

One Heaven on the doorstep
two moons in the sky,
three angels on the pavement
four cars passing by.

Five devils on a corner
six dice roll fate,
seven grows fat
into a jellied eight.

Nine in the morning
breakfast by ten,
eleven children hunt
for the twelfth in his den.

Thirteen unlucky cats
chased by fourteen angry dogs,
fifteen silver witches
weaving spells with sixteen frogs.

On the road at seventeen
driving teacups around the bend,
eighteen brings the litter drunks
with hangovers which never end.

Nineteen gothic paintings
in twenty dustybooks,
twenty one talking mirrors,
twenty two hiding crooks.

Soft chocolate coffins
twenty three in a row,
twenty four melting snowmen
waiting eagerly for snow.

Twenty five, twenty six
on and on it sings,
quietly in my mind at night
curious bloody things...

@steven francis poems 1995

In The Middle Of A Corner

I am a roller
rocking on the porch,
a drug crazed celebrity
I am.

I am a strong man
in the grip of a hangover,
I nurse a beer belly
I am weak.

I am a clown
feeding off laughter,
an addict to darkness
I am.

I am a bully
playing sticks and stones,
crying for attention
I am victim.

I am a tourist
looking for God,
wondering where faith would hide
in a city.

I am a prisoner
for sins of my youth,
on the silk of ghosts
I sit...

@steven francis poems 1995

The Champion Land

We are babes
we want drink and drugs,
we want sex
we want groovy songs.
No more gospel
we want what's hip,
stick PC where it belongs.

We want devils
with hangover attitudes,
not angels
with fluffy clarity.
Bring on joyriders
ditch the clowns,
give us licence for our insanity.

Go for broke
with all guns blazing,
give us 100mph
not red lights.
Review the censored
release the damned,
put disco back into fights.

Kick out the sober
God bless bourbon,
sell us heroin style
offt the bone.
Give us a chance
to be actors or junkies,
death to methadone.

Pull us from gutters
save us from real time,
give us Lara Croft
and hooch flavoured pops.
Throw out whistles
mute the chants,
put exclamation marks
in place of full stops...

@steven francis poems 1995

Eden In The Dark

Dark falls the Eden
and swiftly it sails
into my embrace
and out of sight,
for certain there is Nothing
but the frail beauty of death
with its sombre
music style and emptiness.
Look twice
up to the broiling sky
where charm and silence
are as one
and vapours
twist the evening song.
And dark it falls again,
no longer do I drown
in this sleeping breath,
I cast away a dagger heart
as sorrow
holds passion chained...

@steven francis poems 1995