Orphans

Smash! Peals of lamplight
daze the orphans
crouching in doorways,
riffle their mothy eyes
and fall diagonal
in loping amber bars.
They don't see,
don't scurry or steal away,
just nod on the stoop,
swivelling in the beam
of the dread archangel,
hollow knocking marrow,
writhing pinned down,
chins spotted with dribble.

Darkness whales in,
fever spikes visions
in the tunnel, eyes
rolled like marbles
skitter through dream,
flap and mumble
in rags. Children,
keening in night,
overhung by ghosts,
eyes strained shut,
burst inwards
gushing colour,
filmy ectoplasm, oil
quick with saline odour,
neural discharge, nightmare
juices; left the dry ache
of a dog kicked in the ribs.

Spin into the corner,
lost boys. The wick
flares and drowns,
the pornographic universe
blinks out, ashamed,
teeters in the lurid hush
for a second then spills
across the tiles, bells
and buttons, clowns
and bears and sheiks
jingle beggarly, inflate
then subside like
bouncy castles moaning,
as ambulances clatter
through every county;
the spastic world
a music box that spilt
it rusted guts.

Our children open
their slick black eyes
and make fire among
the bruised, monochrome
husks of empty houses,
and sing.

White Elephant

The clock is slow, it goes
five seconds every hour,
the second hand, red taper,
flickers like an insect wing,
strains over each division
like a 20th hour labour.

Fairy lights strung, lazy
mustache, up behind
the face, glow blue through
the numerals, the time:
ten minutes past midnight.

The wall it hangs on
juts out, Victorian flue
sealed up, leaning monolithic
over the room, like the moon;
lamp lit one side, the other
dark and dusty. The shelf
is a balcony of memorabilia;

a plastic T-rex menacing
a plush toy frog, its stubby tail
whipped up cretaceously
to bullseye the statuesque
OK sign of a metallic hand;
an adjustable mannequin
with sky-embracing arms
looks up in wooden suplication;

a birthday card by a shisha
with beauty and the beast
reclining in a parlour on
the glossy printed cover;
a crumpled tissue; a bottle
of painkillers; a stacked deck.

An 80s baseball card is stuck
to the dappled white wall above.
The floor is strewn with
bedding and coated wires,
spilt tobacco, stuck gum.
The sofas wear it well,
lounging softly, dilapidated,

torn but kind, sometime beds.
A broken guitar, left
knocking in the tangled gutter
behind the television, twangs
sometimes, sings with five strings,
but now lies sleepy and dumb.

Above the TV set the shelf
seats plates, photos, phones,
aerial, camera, box, bauble,
and a beer crate with cut
out eyes, green Grolsch troll,
wears a look of soggy dismay.

Suspended from the yellow vault
of the ceiling, a blown light fitting,
cradled in a stringy ribcage
and blazoned with two
soft chivalric hearts.

Brown wire, burnt bulb,
and a wicker case that beats
its silent pendulum blues
as the second hand jerks,
groaning static loss.

Sirius

Spinning down a jenny vein
of germinated stars
the dog makes the shore
fallen from lullaby dusk
to battle the tree tips, paw
the green scraps, fly
and claw the trunk
and ricochet broken
through the open
mouth of my dark door.
The sun is bawling
a gaudy finale, pink,
like a spoiled child
holding its breath,
sparkling ribbons drop
from distracted arms
and crown the clouds.
The dogstar in my corner
dreams it's on the chase,
shreds my walls, slavers
sugar drippings on my sheets,
shits gold bricks, yelps
riddles when the blacklight
jerks its needling eye
to stare his nova out—
candle snuffer
drooping scythe
holocaust geometry
slopes in the abyss
and the pup bites,
its teeth clot the heart,
knot and fester the dark,
annihilate the night.

Sleep walk

Sunshine on our taxidermy
books left open in half
propped up on sofas
black stains in the carpet
on our clothes
somnambulent caravan
forging through days
voyage through grey cloud
ash tray eyes
crumpled and misty
forage and stir from sleep.
Blunt pisscock spinning
from a weather vane spine,
stark fabric wombed
a crumby nest
a popinjay's blistering hoard,
and the vanguard cloud broke
back into the world
to radiate again
to make our guts jump
feel hunger under hothouse skin
sulphur skull of the last drop
lashed from a dark sky
along a pristine wing
to winnow and gale in the roof
and ripple the filthy sheets
into a seance grin.

Doors of the corridor house glow
yellow with the sun's last shout
burst through the pane, pregnant
the ripe white paper walls.
Chalk and litter cross and flicker
the carpet with the open window
blowing dog-whistle breeze inside.
Ashy the stairway's sidling frame,
pickets beneath the banisters brown
boa, spiralling Archimedes pyre,
mahogany scrawling spine. Black
the vacuum's malignant corner,
the graveyard behind the door.
Trees peer in, unconscious gum
eyes chanting down the chimney,
waking children, tickling cracked
music out of pots and pans.
wind chime glasses skittering out
the door into the swaying garden.
The pipes moan and slither,
dust the ducts shook by storm
with grit and cabbage water.
Dappled sunlight scurries off
into the corner to slightly slip
into the deep blue shadow.