Pauper, the Next

What is this I see before me?
Hell in all its glory...

Death.
Die.
Pass into emblem of state,
no file await the Hollywood
this time.
No Nightingale lines the larynx.
Not for you
flashpoint God
Of yellow lines and slender tantrum.

Adore today
adieu today,
but not the night
when you silently pass
(without fanfare)
into the It,
the What.
Whatever.
Bone broke
Thomas with green,
brackets with sulphur.
Click boxes
and the bait men would raise
and seethe...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

The Grave Mischief of Lady Betty

Bloodthirsty Bet what have you done?
The stranger dead
your only son.

Taught him money was warm as gin,
and greed it was
that put a blade in him.

Time passed slowly in Roscommon gaol
fearing the scaffolds shadow
and hemp pigtail.

She was not alone on her final night,
and all condemned
cursed the morning light.

On the chosen day no hangman came,
but Death was eager
so upped the game.

As Bet stepped onto the gallows cloud
she removed the noose
and said aloud;

'Spare my neck and i'll hang the others!'
And so it was,
she swung her convict brothers.

No souls it seemed could quench fair Bet,
the Irish bloodhound
children won't forget...

© Steven Francis poems 2009

Six Times As Much As Six

Oh where for thou art!
Cavort through metal stalks
toward adder throated kings
laying lower than a baptist.
Daughter of a bamboo bruise,
the hunt six six six,
for birch bodied kettle teens
who hark for cadaver lined strumpets,
toppling on their bayonet heels
and hitching up their wolves for howling.

God rest the mission 666;
wake digital spells unto homebrews.
march gator heads to their hernias
to hernias in shadows
where domed headed children
lurk below as punks.
Always beneath
the simmering blast of summer
blinds a devil's eye
and bands of saturated flesh
seep death sauce to its hunter...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Footwork

We live
we play music
we tip our shadows to the puddles,
we drive and cook
we love
think ourselves brave at music strokes
and we die.
There is no more to it,
no more thought or philosophies
we kiss we walk
we stroke the cat and die...

© Steven Francis poems 2012

Coal Man (Relative of Death)

I am no fun
tick no mercy in your box of chances
as I leap around your shaggy frame
to shake it into putrid mulch.
When I am done (this no good fun)
no medicine or friend will recognise you,
or son or daughter find comfort in holding fathers hand
as it withers in a paper bed.
Disease tenants,
I love you to death...

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Down

Here lies a dragon
cold like milk fish underground,
lifeless for fables.

@ Steven Francis poems 2010

Newsflash!

In the Burry Port Star

This was one of my appearances in local newspaper the Burry Port Star in November 1997. The headline is inaccurate because as good as a poet as he was, Dylan Thomas was never an inspiration of mine. I was/am more into the other Thomas, R.S. Thomas and Hedd Wyn, Coleridge, Ginsberg and the like.


Poseur

Linkway Magazine

My poetry inside...

In Burry Port (my hometown) back in 1993 a lady named Fay Davies (a writer herself) published the Linkway magazines pictured above. It featured poetry mostly but short stories were also included on occasion. Naturally being an enthusiastic, young poet I submitted my early works to the publication and they appeared in several editions (all of the ones in pic) of which I was pleased.
One must remember that in the early nineties, blogging and publishing work on your own website hadn't yet arrived so to have a platform like Linkway where your work was distributed all over Carmarthenshire, was very exciting. Even more so for this hungry poet because I loved seeing my works in print with my name underneath boldly announcing my arrival.


Shine young poet!

Click The Banner

To Bethena

I missed your love and kindness,
your soul of souls,
but beauty with its assorted delinquents and trinkets
never fades or wilts,
and 'tho I nest amongst adders in the dawn
I am at the gentle mercy of you always.
Those eyes, that smile,
a face which had all the answers
and hangs forever, a portrait in my chest.
Oh to have known you darling Bethena!
To have held your hand
and walked with you, both poets on fire,
a furious blaze all together smothering the page.

I gaze into your eyes, those chessnut pools
and know what might have been
is happening now in the emerald garden
where your delicate touch is freezing the furies.
Bethena! Gone before your time
but time itself will be your tribute
as those you Love remember you,
and this ode, testament of your inspiration
which reshaped the horizons of a distant hand.
Oh to have known you!
But content am I to know that you live on,
triumphed over crocodiles
and sending Love in butterflies...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

The Hook Flurries

Metallic coils choke heated fronds,
from breastbone to hollow teeth
where pittance in sands are measured,
death is welcomed as the hams are cooked.
No slivers of fear sweep the eyelids
as kidney plates turn daffodil soft;
crossbone strikes settling in sinkholes
where dogs of moderation are skinned
in favour of lust and avarice.
Gravity pulls the cannibal babes
to their filthy cots but sleep however fancy
always a stubborn bolt away.

Curious freckles simmer on catfish jowls
pricking the glass shell
like stars burning on the edge of space,
breathless icons kept from us.

Beggar at the night scriptures;
silence reigns as crowned eagles unravel
the spring works of Life,
taking hook eyed beasts down into sacrament pits
while frail sons set their fins to knuckle music.
Suffer,
suffer in the depths
eager for refuge in needle arbours...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

Delightful Engine

It slithers in my gut
like lard;
this wall of fat
behind my ribs,
burning beyond the epiglottis
pull on alcohol
as if it was sunshine,
life eternal.
A bloated centipede
hitched onto my skin
like buttered saddles,
freezing tears
before they roll onto clockwork triggers,
aiming for bone in a pubic forest...

@Steven Francis poems 2010

A Death Mask

Often I lay with frog spawn eyes
staring at balls of space;
a hammered tattooed pig hulk
in ruffled bedclothes,
sunshine billowing
the silence,
posing, me dead to world.
An overdosed globule
catching bats
with granite cladded mouth,
my tongue tolling
for soft dew
and guillotine hymns.
I play dead before regal mourning begins in earnest,
a wick for the spirit into oils
of rigor mortis -
until air falls back into my lungs
and I suck,
a pull on the death
that keeps me alive...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Cold Orb In Lycan Skies

The stagnant pearl is in the air,
I see the tumult of rage and sorrow
rise onto winds from shell shocked backs;
half a planet awake tonight,
sober as mists devour hell plagues,
grim fortune lurks beneath heavy coils.
This is night.
The scabbard of Life!
Death has no rule over temperance.
Forward into solace
diseased claw with infernal nails,
songs of black
cast into a fierce cowl.

White soul boiling in its broth,
mountains jostle for new horizons
as eagles bring new scenes.
We tossing twisting,
ever shifting flecks of pulse
soar under moon and star
like tiny ogres roasting swans.
Lethal barbs scar not
whilst poison suffocates in smoke,
the landscapes love and mourn us.
Dashing swords skewer fat wrecks,
relentless headbut of the horns.

It skids politely in the sky
that subtle muse,
crown of ice;
save us from carcass
skull tapped endings.
Temple of the timeless
honest mask of the devil'd night,
guide our shallow pinpricks
as we turn in our deaths.
A stable hope
reminding the godless they are not alone,
omnipresent mega Amen,
root of proof that the poor prosper...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

The Sour Storms

Weak is the canopy which holds
soul and organs,
prey to waves of centuries -
knuckled by disease and dogs,
a fragile barrier
broken in earnest.

Like pulpy dolls we die -
crushed, stabbed,
ripped, ravished,
herded into cancerous bowels
as dainty frames collapse into waste.

Every step through this mortal soup
open to a scissor'd wake
whilst sickly shoals swell
within the kidneys,
curried in fermenting grave wax.

Venom lurks between heartbeats
waiting to strike at ticking bulbs
with grim deathly force,
delivering bubonic berry tumours
to every grain of breath.

Friends of Death -
growing en masse against muscle blankets
turning each frond vulgar
from scabs and mucas,
a painters palette
of grisly sugared spawn.

Anvils taking liberties with paper
as razors overcome the lillies;
more ripened bells for hell
crushed under cancers,
fleeced by melanoma -
young dead
baubels of infection.

The gruesome call of misery
rings over heaving skin
and subtle blood stars settle amongst
iron weighted freckles.
Scream at delicate defences
while anguish unfolds
wreaking villanous ends in matted pores...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

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