Aluminium Thorns Sunk like Teeth in Mildew

I am cold hearted thorn
of many faces
and where muscle is plenty I grow,
fall to me thin as a rapier
swollen fairy on my spider legged boughs.

There is little comfort
on seas of anaesthesia
where blood is as curdled as milk.
Laughter cowers in delirious shadows
and bone turns frail like silk.

Tongue in silence
clad roughly in white,
fat with water but dry from drugs.
Taste vinegar sweat on sunken cheeks
before a shroud becomes a blanket of mud.

The mess of death
with vulgar stains
lurks in crisp white creases of gore.
Parade the sick on rubber stilts
la maquina del amor.

But peace can fall
upon the murder fields
and dust grisly tics away,
because suffering is just another face
on a different kind of day.

There lies hidden maps
beneath the surface,
beyond the reach of lipstick and gold.
Sink into the arms of light
where brittle hearts grow bold...

@Steven Francis poems 2009