THERE IS NO
GROWING OLD
I.
the room for war inside the man
where amidst the squalor
he distances himself
sewing into another lead blanket
the cocooning of years
whilst days unravel themselves
the fallout sent to us from the future
vestibule of mouth
understanding of north
the sinkhole pulls all away from its moorings
II.
I do not accept that an end is coming
I usher it
I beg of it
the end of the body without the spirit
the spire of the death ward
drain-crawling emissary
all the way to the dust-agonised lands
III.
a wall made from innards
two men wanting to change sides
losing vision
while preparing expedition lists
the plumb line
moving towards inertia
riddled with blight
the farming of smoke
nuanced by the depths of crevices
IV.
people unravel themselves from a plastic sheet
spread it out in an open field
as things drop from thin air
separate the birds
disregard the auguries
circumambulate the smoke
plow what is no longer soil
V.
hidden behind the exit
he goes underground
like a mole-man
leaving a trail of dried blood
in search of a paracentric key
to manipulate the years
upturn the tunnels
the sentinel, altered
by facsimiles of sleep
now an indicator of the presence of disease
self-drugging adept
absorbing equilibrium
absorbing sunlight
drains overfill with written notices
if you are reading this
you are an accessory to murders
VI.
the landscape regurgitated
and out came this spillway
replete with hovels of men
bloated with consternation
grating their faces off
for chicken already picked clean
promises, certainties
gulfs of blood
VII.
I touched the things of time
and now exhaustion is perennial
sleep is as a tomb
days as constipation’s scythe
all this temporal horror
nothing has begun
the great nothing has begun
VIII.
I take comfort in spite
of the marrow-sucking city
its shifting walls
its lowering sky
the chalice of warfare perpetuity
is at my lips daily
confirming a pilgrimage to rest,
a city of habitation,
not of blood, flesh, man