Olympic Twelve

Not for me
the batons dedicated to victory,
the rivers of tamed Thames snared
but as I heave no eyes
to look above at runners in their two by twos,
those many many few
I feel the gold surge from their chariot lanes...

© Steven Francis poems 2013

Six Times as Six

Oh where for thou art!
Cavort through metal stalks
toward adder throated kings
laying lower than a baptist.
Oh daughter of a bamboo bruise
the hunt is six six six,
for birch bodied plastic teens
who hark after cadaver lined strumpets,
toppling on their bayonet heels
and hitching up their wolves for howling.

God rest ye mission 666;
stir digital capers unto homebrews
and march gator heads to hernias.
Their bolted throes in shadows
where domed headed children
lurk as punks with kettle mouths.
And bodies
and the static waves
of feral petted skin.

Hush the tides of mourning,
always beneath
the velvet hush,
a simmering blast of summer
blinding the Wild Hunt's eye.
Hands fold,
fold in saturated flesh
death weeping veil to its hunter...

© Steven Francis poems 2013

The BaccyLand (Champion 2)

Scream for tabloid fronted acres
of cheap chicken dens and lager topped vistas;
the Baccy Land
fields of fingered glory(holes)
where Lady Text and her death row prince
lay low from life,
hidden in their television tans.

In spite of labour,
despite the worlds insistence
to spin tides of turning,
those Bacardi darlings
(slum lords to a quid)
are content to thrive in cellulite
and dole queue city yarns.



© Steven Francis poems 2013

Serrated Light

Rolling glass cut the angels
as morning waves sincere
fall on modern hell.
Barbed chins needle their way to totem halls,
man made phantoms, all we are,
the vertebra of salted humility made good.
And though the vows of architects
stretch carnal orders of squad fired lines,
the furies dial repent;
and all awash
the dry clutch collars of sanity
slot limbs into gravy stalls
where sober envy fails to kill
a court of shaded vandals...

© Steven Francis poems 2013

Clover Dawn

Sombrero tans for somber kids,
we artists of the stethoscope
spit Machiavellian rhymes
to live another day beyond the nail.
Valley of chapels
slap jaws to ring out death row
verses,
guide me oh foul great deceiver
mad running madness to chicken stabs
and vertigo.
Hail thy mad.
Heaven beneath a ground
not fit for men of soul
yet fitter than a demon bone...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

To Abraham

To rest hungry eyes
on such a face of interest,
a pleasure,
my poison, man of craggy countenance.
Oh face! Like a map of ribald scars
each leading to sonnet danger tales,
idle creases in collusion with fear shy bones;
Lincoln of the People
a triumph in a land of ages.

Bow thy solemn head
and shake those bats in hoods
under a heavy brow.
A structure future perfect
maddening the timeless printworks.
Magik ending in a K
as your bottom lip nods apologetically
to your castle of A,
Merica
Braham,
silent letters missing
off to fill the liberty spirits...

©Steven Francis poems 2013

Dragon Streets

Mouthless svengalis line the pavements
where suns dry like coked out moths
under Tesco signs and local ads for tyres.
London to Cardiff to blah blah blah,
as wild winds and cities go
London is just Swansea with an ego.
Blunt and tired stiletto parks all,
full to the brim with orange faced girls
in tight skirts without menace or style for slogans
on their chip fat heavy breasts.
And then come the men
as lethal as moles in a bookstore,
dampened by a flat crotch and tin eyelids.

Little Los Angeles!
Dragon streets untamed
untamable,
a menagerie of flame and crusted sauce
battling to be King Blade
on the artery streets...

© Steven Francis 2013