poems

by Aprilia Zank

 
 
preparing for the death on stage – III

 

you touched her neck

with white suede gloves

kissed her

bit her

before you placed

the crown on her head

among all those bare trees

foreboding voices

and skulls

 

but the blood

penetrated the tissue

dripped from the crown spikes

onto her hands

onto her hands

kissed for mercy

by moaning children

 

and no water on earth

not even

the vogues of Acheron

could wash off

those stains

burning their way

through the frenzy

that had slain sleep

 

 

 

reading the signs

 

I levitate above my bed

with all those dogs clinging to my feet

eyeless, toothless, headless

the blue flowers on my white

bed sheets burst red

the fishermen around

read the future in dingy scales

 

I walk in these bare streets

dragging words behind me

heavy like carcasses

crying: listen, listen,

but I hear no echo

 

just a flattering of wings

behind barred windows

 

I climb the walls of my bunker

pull at roots, filaments and fur

choke with the smell of burning flesh

cover my eyes with barbed wire

 

aghast at seeing the signs

branded on the festering cortex

of an army of mutants

 

 

 

passage

 

on bare walls

life’s pulse

black and white diagrams

transmute into

bursts of colour

kinematic torrents

blood floods synapses

Napoleon’s head

on your shoulders

grins become Judas

in the dark

men gape, rotate

on merry-go-round

wood horses