Anxiety’s Buds

Anxiety’s buds
Ripe and sticky as they bloom
Viscous and timid

The Right Shade Of Outrage

When you landed in sequins,
Hung up in a glimmering darkness,
Sparkling careless, screwed-up love
And seducing new fanatics and strays,

You came alien and strange,
Soundtracked with a stolen guitar,
Sliding mutated songs on Vaseline
And blasting our shadows with light.

Lipstick just the right shade of outrage,
You grasped the crass voodoo crush
And painted priests in your make up,
As cryptic messages rained down,

An electric tiger on a mission,
You guided us through ecstasy’s day breaks,
An invader claiming our minds from a stage
And jiving us hard till you starved;

We watched the transformation of a star
Into a world rotating sun,
With the wave of phase and the spark
Of a joy debauched and undone.

That Alien Throb

The waves pulse,
Those salty tears,

The neon maps
Of lands and veins,

That alien throb,
Jaw softly locked;

Late night incantations,
Heightened through haunting,

A yesterday clutched,
A soon bled with colour,

The thrill of stuttered yawns,
And those great, wild intentions

That just rested asleep.

Big Machine

Skin creased all bitter and citric,
Pity painted to the soles of their feet,
Chewed fingers and a lurch as they walk,
Unsteady and ignorant,

Faces sculpted from mashed potato,
Words mushed into one long sound,
Tobacco tans and eyes like the holes
In punched walls;

Someone gave them a voice,
Someone said we should listen,

And now the idiots are oiling the big machine,
Greasing its wheels and buffing its bonnet,
Adding spoilers and flags and freestyling,

The acid reflux of racism revs,
The manual gears of science and fact
Are now automatic lies and distractions,

The truth got so boring it fell off
To sit and rust at the side of a road,

And now we’re here giving time to the fumes
Of greed and hate fogged up to look like
A floating green aurora offering hope,

A beautiful mirage that echoes their anger,
Whispering excuses and offering answers
To the weak and paranoid questions
Rotting at the base of their souls;

They don’t really have goals anymore,
Just a hungry desire to burn things
And have a huge barbecue in the aftermath,

Then after that one long wrestling match
And an anthem that celebrates death.

If only they could take a breath and a look,
Read a book and cuddle up to something other than fear,

Maybe then we wouldn’t be here
And that big machine could just disappear.