Mother Earth for Digital

Love has no fathom
or limits,
nothing would help betray
the love of eggs
wrapped by Giants
and pounded with stone of age.
There is no cure
nor bite for fish,
cotton soaks venom in tails
of sunshine,
hail memory to ginseng bone.

Flat roofs smash embryos
into adulthood,
concrete seed for wild ages,
blooming in the turret sand
where plastic soldiers dare taunt
the wolf and kneel it to its cushion.
Mother arms hold dear blood
close to spiked bark
as cloven leaves fall to order.
Cane devils, candy lambs
a feast of olives to babes.

Daggers sail onto upright palms
waiting for relief from horror,
but wayward saints have no cunning
in wrath of wounds
and comfort is beyond fire.
No mother strips for bombs
or lure lust on heels,
but if torch happened on skin
the ghost would fan the chain
and tears soil cribs.

Moon flail teeth
until devils no longer have passport
between the dials,
there are no roots in stockinged sheaths.
Hang heads like vagabonds
to those kissing herons,
a raised leg for audience.
Love mother
mother I love for eagles,
no skull carved of emblems.
All country folds for cobras...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Colony of Beaten

Worm lives inside
the liver of heroes,
splashing like a porcupine
in trifle grease.
Illuminate fatal sun
inside;
choices made by merry go rounds.
His nest made of dandelion fangs
sits like an ink stain
in cupped hands,
it never lets rest get away.
Or murder.

The Worm is sleeve to inspiration,
spindly legged things;
he loves herds and applause.
He loves panic music
which take him to the heart.
The sulpherous bile
is not always warm;
when madmen forget to think
it curdles.
Worm is not a victim,
those coyote tattoos
mark him well against curled mouths.

On through muscle,
those slabs thirsty for glory
but quick to be sliced on vanity;
on through lungs
where colonies of scruffy fish
bicker amongst rivulets of filth.
Onward slides Worm
on a mission of mechanics;
to solder ambition to the heel
and plant fear in the marrow.
Flesh makes grand fire
when candles heat the skull.

There are maps of neon Chaos
nailed inside the sloppy brain,
and Worm devours them
before hairy tics can lose Order
in pockets of the unconscience.
Worm knows the sin of Man
more than Man knows his own lips;
bloated lips cannot be trusted,
too much tricks gel in sugar
and he must stun giddy soldiers
before Lust arrives
to sow septic cataracts.

Lights along the spine
warn of danger,
nerves tuned to different waves,
the seas beneath the earth.
And this is wher Worm is master;
a streak of Life
wallowing in the fat of Man.
Bald minnow soothing soul and engine
of leviathans,
until dust is ripe for feeding.
Sandstone melanomas amongst bracken
where invertebrae has ministry...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

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,
fear the scaffold's grip
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 its game.

As Bet stepped onto the wooden 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
who slipped her net...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

Antlers Cradle A Cross

That treacle genie
my wildflower,
passion beyond all perversions,
steer my soul into gentle wars
and clean the scabs I gather
from your havoc.
No shipwrecks lurk within those
jelly green waters,
no shark to savage sleep.
King of the hunt
with a morpheous tipped arrow,
lay me down in mystic tar...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

A Poet's Path

Eveyone is chipped from the womb to explore different things in Life. What would surely kill one person is merely a flesh wound to somebody else.
Explorers like Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Jaques Cousteux seek the planets crusts and bile, probing strange and dangerous new routes.
Composers like Mozart and Handel search the wind, looking for beautiful whispers from Gods in the clouds.
And we poets and writers travel to those most lethal and alluring of places, the mind and soul of Man, where survival depends not on compasses or violin strings but on guile and the ability to con.

@ Steven Francis 23rd May 2009

Hedonist & Sasquatch

May weather brings lambs
to daisy hems,
sunshine twists on bracelets
like pond skaters skipping on trout.
Afternoon ice cream
jellybeans on cheeks,
there is no cauldron more glorious or alive
than a river in Spring gloss.
Streak of light
putting ghosts in cribs
and nudging shadow into the mouth
of Venus.

Frosted glasses of plum wine
spill over hampers of mutton and berries,
as damsels in undress grope in barns
like excited lizards on railway sleepers.
Neither bully nor Death
has a page in this scene;
jam scones on a sunday teatime
swat the hammerheads into gasoline coma.
Dried mud paths lead to a
mullet brown harbour,
where chips shops and plastic buckets
turn the air into a potent fog,
pickled lungs never been so glad
but never as full as memories eye.
Those furnace fields still ablaze
long after the gates fell.
Western Man in a painting
for the East...

@Steven Francis poems 2009

End/Gone (Sand on Pavements)

The thought behind this piece was nothing is really solid. All our memories are unique and when we die the memories die too. Almost like nothing in life really happened.



Everything has gone,
all that life
that never was
has gone.
Places past
that were worn on sleeves
but never were,
have gone.
Childhood summers
of peaches and cafe arcades
which never were,
all gone.
Everything that never was
gone to meet its End...

@Steven Francis poems 2009