Marching Drum of the Chambers

In here
on the other side of the phlegm coils
fresh air is stalled,
buffered by isolation
and clipped on sterile steel.
Sanctuary of the horned
in pretty gulags,
severed from beating sun,
kept beyond the reach of nature.
No sand to swallow heels
or rivers to speak of,
forget estuaries and rugged coasts
here lies dead ends.
No tree bark to scuff
the finger pads,
no dew on webby toes.
Brain lost in hazy halls of solitude
where hair is all that grows;
dreams and breath,
deserved of nothing more
in a dungeon sink hole...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

The A to Z Of Light

Death is always on my shoulder
I could not lose the page -

the offering of
a diamond lined silk coffin
complete with air holes
and beer mat
is with me always

every sober minute
all of time
morbid but serene...

@Steven Francis 2009

We Are Dead

We walk dead
we look dead -

to sequined eyes
and spinning circus brains
we are silver chains on doom.

We talk dead
we smoke dead -

young flowers wilt
at our whims,
we brazen killers
pureed in candy sauce.

We eat dead
we play dead -

simmering silence
at the news of the day,
cold to events
and cherry red love.

We happy dead
we happy dead
we happy
we...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Taken from 'The Angina Engine'

I See Demons When I Wretch

Behind creased eyelids
deformity staggers
while I try to hurl my offensive guts
into clean air.
The rictus grinning ogres
balloon faced evil jesters
and horned babies
all lurk within my cortex
as I screw my intestines into curried knots.
They line the inside of my dome
in a miserable parade,
chittering in silence like wild chimps
while my tongue curdles toxins
and whisks bile.
Every cough brings corpses
to the haze,
little tufts of morbid delight
that hang on my internal canvas
like coal on lace.
I heave foam,
straining vocal chords
pulling muscles,
seeing terrible faces in the dark...

@ Steven Francis poems 2009

Sunrise Before Oak Tan

Steady the reigns of death
so that I may lay still upon
the deck which takes me to my garden.
The busy minute that marks forever
that until now
Id hoped I was forgotten.
The sun at breakfast
harbour shell muscle smells,
cockles in mud
the calling of crows to roost.
They go on and onward
yet so limited their audience.

Hoodwinked by simple things
like locking doors or lapping froth,
I had missed the trick;
my eye fixed on the bounce
not the ball.
Birth and death
upon us all in heavy drifts
but silent in their sting.
The way of living
not always balanced to how we expire
because the core of Man
runs deep beneath divine waves...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Welcome The Dear Ghouls

Beneath cream complexion
and tomato spiked lips
lurk the ghouls

and lurk is right
for we wait amongst disease
a deathly lounge,
and we is right
because I am ghoul.

The lure
of cobwebs and sulphur
of carcass and tomb,
it is a beautiful thing
bizarre and macabre

and beautiful is right
for we delight
in skewered eyelids.
Grand messy sloppy
death beds...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Horror Unfolds As Cartoon Toy Looks On

As vegitarian boy
turns into a murderous superbeast
shivering between slobber,
the happy faces on soft toys remain unchanged;
frozen in a merry stare
watching kindness curdle
and morph into a twisted wolf.

Laughter and Rage
bouncing off each others mask,
running on doom
across foreign maps
tilting cages filled with
iron and glass balls,
spilling them over natures Order.

Rage takes over beast
but comedy still quivers
on the toys smiling head,
even as calm is smashed by howls.
Hatred in fun's domain
laughter on cruel shores;
both wild in their own
frantic barebacked way,
shunning fragile shells...

@Steven Francis poems 2009