Slow Pulse Boy

Somewhere the blast furnace explodes
Plumes of amber in the night sky
Each explosion bounces
From horizon to horizon
From horizon...to horizon
And for a while, the slow pulse boy
Stood by the window
And let the fire sink into his skin.
Again all was still...
But for the empty tin,
Rolling up and down the gutter,
On the breeze.

Then we were standing very close,
I could live in the space
Between his heart beats.
Outside the furnace errupts again
And dark red rivers
Filled our veins with frenzy,
We could tear up the floors
And find all the things we'd ever lost.

And the fire burns in our jack boots...
So we chase the explosions
From horizon to horizon,
Wrap ourselves around the distance
For as long as we can hold.

Somewhere a girl is singing.

There is calm in the air
But there is greater calm than I can bear.
Tomorrow the sun shines.

Maps In Her Wrists and Arms

In the tent of powder and lace,
Vultures pick at a carcass that feeds by hand,
Longing to decay
Waits to hear the sound
Of their wings slowly heave as they fly away...
Some will stay for days.

There's maps in her wrists and arms,
And the dust lies like snow around the bed.

Glowing white, a sculpture of bone,
Or a jewel like a crumpled, distorted moon
Shivers in her mind,
If she moves too near
It shatters so quickly, leaves nothing behind,
The old lady sighs.

Sometimes when she lifts her eyes
The room has filled with flowing sheets of silk.
There's maps in her wrists and arms,
And the morphine surges terror bread and bliss.

In the tent of powder and lace,
She can hear some violins, watches the strings...
Threading through the room.

Vincent Craine

It was late afternoon,
She sat watching never come to Vincent Craine,
She tries to hold him in her arms
Under the wet weather swollen door...
Never came.
She pressed her knee up
Underneath the wooden table,
As in her midriff
Dread flutters like the threat of love or pain.

There was a bowl of fruit
Shrinking on the table by a rusting spoon.
Never came.
Through piles of wrecked cars,
From the stagnant pools of water,
From the abattoir flies
That swarm leech and crawl in Clamour Lane.

She walked towards the door,
Pushed it open, and stood behind Vincent Craine
He leaned back and locked his arms around her
Thin awkward legs.
They watched the sunlight
Slide in cold squares across the walls.

Jack

Jack went out one stormy day
To see where his feet would go,
They took him from his sleeping town
Across land both high and low,
They took him through the velvet streets
Where men walked on their toes,
And down the slopes
Where bottled hell
And blind men lie in rows.

Jack walked through the treacle swamps
and crossed the salt dry plains,
He passed a house where tall, thin dogs
Pulled on their iron chains,
he heard the songs of seed germ girls
Who warmed the frozen fields,
And as Jack walked
He felt the corn
Push up his tired heels.

He saw the heathens' heather hills,
He watched a boiling sea,
He met a man with wooden hands
Carved from an old fruit tree.
The old man said he dreamt at night
Of blossom roots and knives,
And that night when
Jack went to sleep
He dreamt of damson pies.

Jack walked out one stormy day
To see where his feet would go,
They took him north they took him east
But never took him home.

The poplars stand as still as steeples,
Under a million scattered stars.
From rippled earth that's cracked and sleeping
Under the frozen static stars
The headless clay woman's
Shimmering body stands,
And the frost that locks her nakedness
Melts away.

Through air that's crystal black ink shadows
As sharp as the thickets' thorn and the ice,
She moves painless, slow and flowing
Across the wild and trembling path,
And the headless clay woman's
Motionless beauty shines...
Restless stars reflect in wet red streams
Across her back.

Her bare feet step over the split stones,
Past the water pump and the pail,
Round and round the paint flaking empty house,
And past the glass warped window.
And the headless woman
She stands half up and half down the stairs,
She cannot see the bottom
And she cannot see the top.

And million stars are shining...
A million stars...
As she lies back down
In the frozen warped world.

Virus Meadow

Rattled chime, slow ringing echo
Roll around in virus meadow.
Suck enchanted nightshade twine,
Hear the bells beneath us chime.

Sinking sermon, priest head murmurs
Holy words across the meadows.
Kissed the plagues' black rolling hand,
Through his lips the virus sang.

And the rooks, they seemed to follow him
Wherever he goes-
Flapping in the flat sky,
Shrieking in the spire.
Hanging from the lead sky,
Dangling from the sun.
The rooks, they seemed to follow him...
Wherever he goes.

Nodding thistle, English sun dew,
Swansneck woman, child-bed meadow.
Aching shoulders sink and grow
As the bells from ditches toll.

And the smeared skin wrapped limbs
Of the night brothers,
Struggling...crawling
Through the empty crack of morning.