Freedom

And when the gods have all laughed themselves to death
And when the docile mooncalves in their stalls are slaughtered
In the stillest hour you put your beating heart
Into a plastic bag, and beat me around the head.

Fly mooncalf spirits, fly.

Aunt Lucy the sweetie, sweeter than the truth she spouts, seeks purpose where futility only lies, seeks comfort in current affairs of the safe normality within the ordinary bounds of her world of opinions – what is more, what is less, whatever else we abbreviate her in her dull regularity like the heartbeat of a whale as she sits so shriekingly incoherent in the corner by the fire, the sweetie, violent old biddy. Isabel is Eleanor Rigby, darning her socks in the night when there’s nobody left; all gone off to the Elysian Fields calm yourself Rigby just wait by the window – your production line, reserve-army-of-labour smile must be stopped or I will cry; for the tragedy of the blister-fingered concerned other can only be borne with the perfunctory annulment of etc., and even less with the crushing hopes for valorous validation in mad medallion glory – like a child on a stick propped up for the benefit of bullets and Victoria Crosses alike, pin the tail on the dead donkey, shot in the face for the sake of parental approval. Father dearly hoped for etc. to become etcetera in a way he never had, for the extraneous details of his life were never even worth the full extension only the abbreviation of an abbreviation, but what he can’t have sadly I can, the chance to die in an ocean of my own self-fulfilling ironies, that nothing I can’t not have extends far beyond a face-down view of the Somme on a good day, I dream of you in a silent way and hope the conclusion of my extension is short but sweet, easy passing, felt-no-pain etcetera.

Are these my arms? These are not my fiery popping elbow joints. Are these your hands? These are not your hands. The ropes tight run up my arms to the wrist, sudden pain with movement, like a spasm, an involuntary cry escapes. The little drill slides up the back of my teeth into the gum, it stabs like a pin again and again. This is not metaphor. Ankles like weights gripped tight with strain. Head feels like a botched lobotomy. Are these my arms?
Burning burning burning

O sweet nuthin. Annihilation is just a phrase. Annihilation is just a phase.

“I wonder do you remember exactly when it was you became such a comedian”
“I think it was the day you and daddy laughed all the way to the bank”
“Ahh … fuck you”
“I’m gonna crack with this”
“Like an egg, right? Right?”
“Hah. Yeah, like an egg”

On the banks of the decrepit river, a joining of hands
A bowing of heads, declining of necks
Turning in towards one and one other, a union
Desperate feverish scraping nails scratch the blackboard away
Heart and head are one, as are we. You hand a gun to me.
You say “Freedom is our right, so let’s be free”