Dare of the Sultan's Beak

Do it in my sleep:
f**k and whip me
take my breath away,
kill me
grand murder.
Scare these solemn scars
and weave them into a morgue utopia,
a reflection vile,
another fine day for the dying switch
to trap my codeine epilogue
in savage gardens of heretic limbo.


Deathfanglorious!
But do it in the quiet night
when heartbeat is in its infancy.
Glass vain kidneys,
abuse the weakened flesh
and hold my loving, cruel heart
in skull hands.
A white ego
stoned in slumber cells,
these poor cadaverous leftovers
left for real this time.
Welcome an evil side,
prayer returned to sender
just sympathise...

© Steven Francis poems 2013



@ Steven Francis 2011

How Rest, Modern Dead

In mortal cradles
bodies do they sleep,
bombed to tears,
in earthly threads.
A bitter walk on city bones,
frost an ally
strips of soul (kept here for towns to mourn)
as ancients rise to glass lambs
and wild prayer.

How sleep the morbid brave,
whistling for capers
and reigning sin.
Who is who?
Of carpet cadavers?
The skin trilogy:
birth
and disease,
and dying in a rosy shell
as wolf takes hold...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Wallpapers Knock the Edge Off Picture Frames

And there it stands
as proud as a heron knifing fish
with its dagger face,
a memory of tanned flesh
nailed to the sand-bag hurting wall.
Glass heroes or heroines
stitched to paper,
witnessing love and fights,
all screeching dishes and cotton witchcraft.

Everlasting smiles
the haggard baron,
squirming on tea stained paper.
The mould dark as lice
creeping closer to lick the face of Saints.
Family gallows
on bony rusting nails,
keep safe the memories,
away from height of wolves.

Lofty heights,
a ceiling higher than Heaven,
call for tea and chips
as you kneel before a familiar Jesus.
Time is eternal in the rocking fist of pine
and less is blood behind that happy window.
Purse of dreams,
a halo of frozen minutes...

©Steven Francis poems 2013