The Banyan Tree

The Banyan tree!
The Banyan tree!
Pray to never see the Banyan tree!
Where shadows dance in locust fits
and werewolf silhouettes prey
on those pray.
Empire of ghosts
orchestra of undead
worship the gods to hatchet the tree.

The Banyan tree!
The Banyan tree!
Darkness holds the devil
in the Banyan tree.
And where she roots
anfgels fall
because the devil holds darkness
in the Banyan Tree...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Jade of Night

I only speak with family in dreams
where eyes are flat and voices low.
No longer trees go by in seconds flight,
life is hesitant where tombstones grow.

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Grimace (Or Not for Dogs)

Stay that heel
assassin of night,
dont make me dead just yet
for my head is too full of random errands
to be the death I must eventually become.
And while the minds eye tumbles over boggy meadows
my heart slices the khardoma sun,
needing one more blink
to breathe before I suffocate.

And then after sips of maple syrup
will I fold my cadaver
into fountains of earthy whiskers
and give my morbid hand to the tantrum shore...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Friend Of Waves

Rag doll bounce
'God help me' words
as you sink like a mole
beneath watery hole,
goodnight sweet forget-a-lot
adieu.

Bikini innards
twitch zombie strobe,

heil heil the summit floor!
For sale
forget the ale,
smorgasbord mama
help!

Revelations 999
flip six six six,

kidney Dostoyevsky.
Werewolf smiles
bedouin miles,
reap the
Titanic, sink...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Hounded By Sonnets As Death Gives Chase

"And the poet Ste..."
No not yet
please no radio nails tonight,
this morning
whatever it is.
There is much to do still,
tea to brew,
ghosts to chase
and a thousand other scenes to set.
Please don't kill the rat just yet.

"His last words...."
I beg ye invaders of a tragic soul
not now, hold off,
my head too full of random errands
to be the death I must eventually become.
More songs for machete anthems
more bitter ink for sun....

© Steven Francis poems 2013

Vokal

The last chord from a red lane,
grinded away by tooth
and mortal air.
Two of us
granted no stay of death;
end words
as parched as desert stones.

Hear no more of me
and this clicking tongue.
Only in hearts and memories
are stages set
for a round of heavy sighs and prophecy.

Press "Play"
when lips will play no more,
and eventhough this soul has gone to roost
the vocals survive in mechanics.
No true end of words afterall,
no end no more in a televised century...

©Steven Francis poems 2012

Don't Sleep

Don't sleep cariad fach,
the goodly sons and daughters
are racing to your whispers
even when darkness grips
the cold shard of night.
Yn disgwyl arno ti.

Do not sleep dear Wales,
fall not to despair and anger
and lift the light of Hope
to find our babe,
lead her home to Mami.
Peidiwch cysgy blodyn
mae pawb yn dod...

FOR APRIL JONES

© Steven Francis poems 2012

A Key Of Sorts, A Sort Of Key

The sad weeping of a discarded Allen key
trails through halls metallic as they are dim.
Oh to be heartless as steel
or as endless as offal,
to see a word spill from dying lips.
It would be harmony
a fit like talons in a shrew,
that bastard punch of combs through hair...

© Steven Francis poems 2012



@ Steven Francis 2011

Gretchen

What is in a name?
An adder or chameleon,
poised to mark the world,
earth a solid hand.
To pull a title from toybox
from idea to Gretchen.

A bad name,
an evil bad name of wasps and hemlock,
that G hatchet falls like owls on shrews,
fear the Gretchen
that boiling mad witch.
She seethes on lips
making demons proud,
oh Gretchen of the masks...

© Steven Francis poems 2012

August Wales

And as the loaded red beast dipped
to tag a sincere, sickl'd dawn,
there arose my hiraeth
and I was home in Wales
in Carmarthen chains...

© Steven Francis poems 2012

Familiar Uknown (Force of Nature)

The pull of home brings footsteps back
to pad corridors that cannot tell email from teeth.
And as familiar as the public are
with voices and the tilt of necks,
bricks see nothing
while flowers spew their froth,
no lights in warren solitude.
That knuckled spook in gartered, cotton gown
may as well send its ghost to roam
amongst the propped up eyeless vinyl
on Ikea avenue.
Lost man out of style
in a Geronimo moment of masks and streets,
inbetween the grey and cold.

Tap
tap tip tap,
naked bones on keen heels.
One gone again to internet jars,
tap and then another,
famous names used like towels,
off to delirium beds at last...

@Steven Francis poems 2012

Poet 666

Crypt Of Lieberkuhn

Dig the rat men who sail with scissors and blood
a deeper grave than most.
Send them down to the crypt of Lieberkühn
to erase every foulest trace
and make their hateful lessons as mute as mud.
No monument for murder
should ever be,
so shovel and forget,
forget them in the crypt of Lieberkühn....

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

The Rats Are Loose

Dare not sleep tonight.
Care not for rest
with its morphine stabs and death wax.
Seek the Yanto men with glossy widowmakers
to engrave heretics with bullets
and pulverise each sermon to dust.
The sightless renegades are loose
to frame time in fires
as ham hock poetry from olive worded books
ladder down my gartered spine,
searching for the root of life
and its war fever...

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading

Every Time I See Black Holes I Think Of Heart Attacks

Those mighty blossoms of feral space
the black hole seizes my fungus fused liver with dread,
paralyzing every tenor of my mortal lungs.
Oh deepest pit where nightmares roost!
Like the very depths of hell suspended in a solar garden
sucking life out of light
as you offer horizons to end all sight and sound.
Galactic supermonster,
hero to a neverending thirst,
wake the dead, stir the galant muse.
Starry cove to swallow wing and fortune...

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading

Exit Size O

Stood upon the morbid stage
footless dance, no more age.
Hempen rope driving sin from bones
to send them down to Davy Jones...

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading:

Mowing With Pets Nearby

Risk shame to caution
while firebranded cyclones
swipe at feathered golems without hindrance,
not a care about satisying the endless hole.
A bedded breast, fast to sentiment
loses echoes which rebound off mourning stalls
and shatter like a thousand deaf tumours.
Oh faithful subtle joinery of bone!
Bond with muted names
as happy as ever lasting smiles
but beware the corpse beneath those matted tags,
those pretty bells to ring away birthdays....

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading

Under A (Now) Hornless Crab

A nomad without siren
draws on a scallop'd imp to raise the pins
from charcoal screens and nickel ribbons;
and ideas in bright sick sun glassed waves
are hurled in spirals through forbidden realms
like a devil plucking goats for soup.
Then foul veins expand at dainty breath,
powerless at scenes of a barefoot doll,
her hands on foxglove hips,
twitching the water with salmon curtains
calling for murders of innocence.

And yet for all hopes of salamander dances,
the yearning for unholy pits,
a bare heel, simple like a boiled acorn
and an Oriental wink
holds the guillotine in place.
The awful drop that allows no backward glances
to fields of order is stayed;
as is the yellow colour of a ripe sun
and the gentle green of grass....

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading

Use By...

Immortal
here and now
in the present
today,
ever after
this day and night
clock strikes, bang!
This second
not yesterday or tomorrow,
this minute
today.
Not past or future,
shillings roll in instant
immediate
on time.
Immortal shakes
never rest,
lose the grip
in split seconds.
Dawn breaks today
only today,
in the present,
the happy ever after
is a con job.

@ Steven Francis poems 2012

Reading

The Idea Behind 'The Heron Ponds'