The Death of One Who Never Was

He or sometimes She
would never feel the salt but still we mourn
as if She or sometimes He
had lived a thousand lives.

All pains lie with Him
or Her,
the bullets and heartache,
ills and poisoned luck.

So here's to you
as tongueless hoardes come mute
to sail heavy, sometimes awkward glances
over thy dark frame in sandy, morphine jaws.
Eyes closed yet alive to clocks
and inches,
rolling to tea and shop fronts
where memoirs dragged by chariots of ages
come to fall under sleepy overtures
and choirs of death.

You,
the friend to skulls
lover of gin gallows and looking to the blind,
you come to a hundred deaths.

@Steven Francis poems 2014

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