New Rugged Cross: A Collection

“Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god.”

- Charles Bukowski

Loving Icarus

I’m feeling the air on the thick of my tongue,

and it’s summertime -

it’s summertime, now, and I think it’s a Sunday,

so I’m going to smoke that Cuban cigar

in the quiet, against the sunlight.

I’m going to wait until the sun comes down,

and then the light is all mine to drink in;

not one, but millions of stars share the glory.

I’m blinking it in, like this will be forever,

and there’s something in me that wonders

why I’ve waited so long to live.

Why I always let the light filter

through stained glass,

and why I believed them when they told me

that staring directly at the sun

would blind me in forgiveness.

Why does forgiveness have to hurt?

I’m wondering if I can ever forgive myself

by kissing switchblades

and licking the flames from votive candles,

or if there must be an easier way

to do all of this.

But if I cling too much to what happiness could be,

then I’ll never know how to forgive myself

for not having it sooner;

they want me to live a good life,

but I am steeped in sin

and waiting to burn.

This - this thing -

is far too much about what they want.

Far too much against

Cuban cigars and Sunday mornings

in bed, and grabbing hold of life

with fists and hair and saying

“take this, all of you,

and roll with it.”

I’m paving my own narrative,

looking at barefoot beachfront walks

like altars, and I know -

I ate the fruit, and now I know,

that a long line of commercialism

will fool you into thinking

that the light at the end of the tunnel

means something.

The Anaesthesia

Let’s talk about my knuckles,

and how scarred they are;

how the callouses seep

into flesh, become part of me,

rubbing circles underneath the hood

of my uvula.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,

and how they’re only the starting point

for throwing up apples,

golden, red, green,

bitter and sweet,

all of them mine, to be choked

back into me.

So let’s talk about Mary-birds,

and the sacrifices they make

for their children,

and in doing that, let’s talk about vomit

and how beautiful the sheen

of afterbirth looks in the toilet bowl,

and how often self-destruction

tastes like sacrifice on the way back up.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,

again, and the visceral scraping

against teeth,

and how much it feels like giving up

to not sit by the toilet

waiting for a sign

that this is somehow enough.

So let’s talk about being good enough,

and how I’ll never feel that way

until my knuckles mingle

with milk-white bone,

and how the rows of pews

are pearlescent,

tainted yellow,

with smoke and bile.

So let’s talk about talons,

and vultures, and everything that happens

after death, and let’s talk about

how one day the sea will swallow us whole,

and let’s talk about the belly of the beast,

and let’s talk about Jonah,

and oh - sorry - the sermon is over,

and the priest is taking confessions,

so let’s not talk

anymore.

Unshared Father

I remember dying, Father.

I remember it like it was yesterday,

because it was,

when you told me to save them,

and I saved them,

and then they told me I was you,

and I’m confused.

I remember it well,

the pounding of nails into flesh,

tingling in my heart;

I love another,

who is not you,

but could be

given the right light,

and opportunity.

I remember the pain,

sinking across palms,

and I beg for you

not to create any more stigmata

for the fallen;

I thought you loved them.

They do not deserve this.

I remember believing in you,

unwavering faith,

and I remember having all of that

choked into my neck muscles,

spasming to gasp for air

like crucifixion, again,

and I remember you.

Father, I remember you.

Do not think for a Heavenly moment

that I can ever forget

the role you pushed me into.

I remember your burning angel-eyes

and I breathe silently at Passover

so that my presence is unknown.

I remember what I am supposed to do.

I am supposed to save them,

to save them,

isn’t that what you sent me here for?

Just another errand

on your long list of people to sacrifice,

but I am here to save them.

even if that means

using your blood for my resurrection.

Lourdes Milk

We were dying of thirst,

clamouring amongst each other

to lick the spit of women

like mothers’ milk,

we cried out, begging

for resolution,

for water in the drought.

Our lives were shattered,

children screaming

for the since-dried milk

of nourishment,

women sobbing upon

small corpses.

God, we cried.

And then you came,

a gift amongst the flint;

we had long since found fire

but you taught us

how to put it out.

It ached in the milk-light

of our bones,

a flowing stream

and tablets carved

of testaments,

of commandments

that spoke

of how we were destroying

the earth,

how repentance

is simply not enough.

And god, we cried,

we cleansed our sins,

and we cried

for water,

and you brought it to us.

Legs spread,

Mother Mary holding

women close,

the only sacrament

worthy of sacrifice.

Men falling in useless battles,

and women bringing water

to the dead.

We found a stream.

We drank.

Mother Mary sunk wide,

and god, we drank.

To Die for Salome

Darling, please tell me which head you want on a platter,

and I’ll bring it to you. Don’t love him, please,

don’t love him, love me instead,

yes, I’ll decapitate myself if it means you’ll kiss my dead lips,

and please, love me until I die,

it’ll be an honour for a mouth like yours to mourn for me,

but please, don’t mourn for me.

I’m nothing in terms of you,

but I want you to remember me,

if only through the candles in the church,

from which my face burns in selfish wonder,

asking you if you’ve read my autobiography yet, and what you

thought of what I had to say,

don’t mourn for me.

Silver feels so sweet against my flesh,

so cool, like the pools of water

in which I sink myself,

waiting to drown like it’s the only thing that matters,

like all I can do is suck saltwater violently,

and I love you violently,

please, I love you,

but don’t mourn for me.

I wonder how you’ll cut my head off,

whether you’ll use a knife or a sword,

or the switchblade with dried blood that I showed you;

yes, I’m laying claim to this,

and yes, I’m begging you to use my own weapons against me,

but I’ll die anyway.

Let me have this,

but please,

don’t mourn for me.

Can I beg?

Can I ask you to kill me,

so that I can pretend it was my choice

to be lying here,

pale and emaciated,

kissing the knife against my neck,

calling you vampire,

calling you mine,

calling myself baptist, but lover,

don’t mourn for me.

I’ll call cool waters home,

I’ll think of the ocean,

and I’ll think of you,

and I’ll craft a manger from all of this dust,

because that’s all I’ll ever become

as long as you, Salome,

never mourn for me.

Abraham, and What He Did

I love this!

Being a sacrifice,

Father, I love this!

Oh, thank you,

thank you so much

for not asking me

if it’s alright to cut open my flesh,

thank you, thank you!

It’s such a wonderful feeling,

ah! It hurts -

thank you!

God is so merciful,

perhaps I’ll get into Heaven

with this offering -

what do you mean it’s all for you?

What do you mean I’m just a commodity?

What do you mean my flesh is yours to give?

Father!

I do not want this anymore,

I do not want to be a sacrifice

if I will not reap the rewards -

god, it burns!

The knife cuts me open

like Sunday dinner;

how is this not mine?

How is my flesh not mine to own?

Father, please!

I am begging you,

ease up, stop cutting,

I’ll repent, I’ll be yours,

I’ll open myself up

if it’s what you command,

but do not let my flesh

be given to someone else.

No! Nobody will know sacrifice

like I know it,

intimately and forever -

I am not yours!

My blood is not yours to give,

but you tie me down,

and god!

God!

It hurts -

father, Father, please, it hurts.

Shuffle towards the marrow of my bones, Abraham.

Know my eyes when you burn into them.

I am your sacrifice,

but never willingly.

You are the Lion

They said it was only prisoners’ flesh

that lions want to eat,

and I’m remembering that, when you,

named as Mary,

bear down upon me and I gasp,

pleasure-filled and psalm-sick.

Who is Daniel?

And moreover - do we care?

You tell me to stop thinking so much,

and that’s alright,

I’ll stop thinking at all

if it pleases you.

It pleases me.

Your soft lips, arching,

pounding stones for those who have never sinned,

I beg you to embalm me this way forever,

and you laugh -

you tell me that nothing is permanent.

I am crying.

The den is filled with misty tomorrows,

and yesterdays that I will have to confess,

but I cannot bring myself

to bring testament to you,

and make real the blood from your Eve-flesh,

because if it is not real,

it is not mine.

Can I deal with that?

Oh, Daniel is knocking at my door, now.

I will let him in,

and this is goodbye

to the giant of my love

that cannot swell further in my heart

for fear of aneurysm

or breaking.

Cain’s Pride

He puffs out his chest and takes up space for two,

long before the temple is destroyed.

Nobody has told him ‘no’ in a long time,

and nobody has ever taught him how to be humble.

This is where he stands, tending his animals,

spitting and swearing and squaring up to the pigs,

his face ballooning in redness, all the majesty

of colour given to him alone by God.

His masculinity is ripe with each slain animal,

domesticated and reared for sacrifice to please another,

another man, for whom pride is not a virtue.

Nobody has ever taught him how to be wrong,

and so he is never wrong, right up until the moment

when the stone is in his hand and the blood is on the stone

and the brother is in the blood and the history is given to the brother.

For the whole of time, there has been the trinity,

and with four alive, it was simple maths of which brother

must be cut down. The strong must weed out the kind,

and Cain will go down fighting one day,

but not today. Today, there is a victor, and a title,

and a promise ripped from the heart of the father

that nobody will hurt him the way he hurts.

It is the stone that cycles back,

like rainwater or bad luck or the static feeling

of something going very wrong.

These men do not lie, they deceive,

and Cain was granted protection,

until his house fell down

and his body, under the rubble,

for the very first time,

knew the communion

of what it is like to lose.

Cain’s Riot

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a pillar. Call it yours.

Hello, Cain. Have you heard of shared glory?

I don’t think you have; that’s okay,

neither have I, for I am the One,

and nothing can take that from me.

You wish to be this way?

I have told you;

here is perpetual stone,

you have all the tools necessary.

Necessary for what?

For legacy.

For eternity.

Baby, hold onto me.

Angel, that’s what you’ll be,

baby, darling, mine,

take the stone

like man who lies with man.

What? I have betrayed you?

You should know this.

My love is Abel,

my love is not yours to give.

Unless, of course,

you want to take it from me.

Yes, that’s it,

take the eternal stone.

This is the history you want to craft.

Violent, bloody,

and completely, utterly,

yours.

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a legacy.

Hate it; call it yours.

Catholic Therapy

I’m told to seek penance in the rosary,

and I want to throw the bible in their faces,

because how can they forget Lot’s Wife so easily?

How can trauma be so effortlessly muddled

in the word of the Lord?

How am I supposed to forget all that happened to me?

It is my fault, I’ve been told,

for looking back,

for dwelling on it until the bitter salt

becomes me, and I am a pillar,

but I will not forget so easily.

I cannot forget, if at all,

and those men in white robes speak testaments

of electric shock therapy until I am drooling,

and they are collecting it in a vial,

and it’s another story about trauma

that becomes seasoning for the lamb.

It is my fault, I think,

as I look back

and wonder what could have been done differently.

What I could have said or done

to prevent the men of faith

from ripping me to shreds

in their own stories.

Why am I,

not quite feminine and not quite fragile,

just a story to be told over beers and whiskey

about how I am a stepping stone

to your pillar?

Why do you get to be the pillar?

Why do you get to be the stone?

Why am I the salt-like spider webs,

stronger than your steel

but broken by your diamond hands,

born from the coal that I forged?

Cream for the Fruit of the Womb

The woman’s width is claimed by God;

milk and blood mingle into love,

and the King of Kings is crowned in the birth canal.

Invite all the strangers to gawk,

their gifts garish and presented with condition -

she will, one day, be an afterthought,

not a second, but a fourth.

She will gather with those who will one day mourn

alongside her, her hands fresh salt

and the rest of her the wound.

It was never a choice that came willingly,

but from Ophelia to Monroe

she will be remembered how men wish her to be.

When her face appears in streams and mirrors,

know that only the reflection has power -

she has plucked the cord from between the mountains

and now her womb will glisten,

slick with sweat and blessèd water,

in the fifth layer of the eternal Heaven she was promised.

The woman, with her limbs and eyes and cracking bones,

is supposed to rise, but the writing stops

after the men have played their little game of execution,

and scholars pick up the pieces

of the heavenly woman of Revelation,

grasping at umbilical straws for a meaning to what she gave.

Thin bible pages are dedicated to her lithe form,

her childbearing hips that filled out with the grace of God,

for Joseph’s carpenter hands to carve and clench

and give him cuckoo-sons,

but he is Joseph, and he can shout louder than she,

and raise hell to the Heavens

if he wants to.

She, fruit-bearing mother,

is only taken bodily to Heaven

because there was an angel

who requested something to pass the time.

Don’t Read This

Somewhere beneath the broad darkness

and the landslide, there’s a pocket

of nothingness, like the air bubbles

that oxygenate red wine. And somewhere

inside that, there I am,

mime-hands loving Stevie Smith

and all she stood for. A void

is just a void, and a poem

is just a poem, no matter how

you read it. You can bring this

into the church and line it up with the stained glass,

looking for a hidden meaning,

but I know this nothingness intimately,

like I know soft skin and the taste of vomit,

and there is nothing to be found in there

that isn’t already inside you, except

maybe warmth and candlelight

and the idea that nothing is too far gone

to not be saved anymore. Sometimes,

I think people intentionally obscure what they mean,

like they’re not good enough for a line break,

and like it’ll be easier to rationalise being left behind

if they were limping from the start of the race

anyway. Anyway. Sorry about this;

sorry about all of this, I just really like how it looks

when you try to work any of this out.

Because it looks dismal. It looks like a pregnant

sundial churning out another day,

another day that might be Sunday,

but it also might not. It’s not like I know.

I think this stopped being a poem a few lines ago

and started being something to burn, instead,

but you can take the smallest of lighters

to the mightiest of Goliaths and they’ll scream

all the same. I heard that lobsters scream

if you put them in boiling water whilst they’re still alive.

I feel like that sometimes.

I don’t know if I’m the lobster or the water,

most days. I think I know now.

I think I know something, now,

at least.

Poker

Herod’s fingers taste

of earthquakes, of disaster,

of the spit of the woman

he liked before me.

Potiphar’s coins ring

in my ears, on my fingers,

a pile of gold to drown

my splayed body in.

The two men play poker,

and I am the bargaining chip,

for their straight flush,

ashamed and disinterested.

Herod will not fold,

his pride venomous

against his meaty chest,

all wiry hairs and “I dare you”s.

Potiphar raises the stakes

with a flash of gold tooth,

and drags his finger along his neck,

slender and elongated.

The guillotine already feels familiar,

as the rules are plucked

like fresh grapes

or the only rotten part of the fig.

Herod beckons me forth

to look at his cards;

“yes,” I say,

“you are ruthless.”

Potiphar snatches me, now,

and I see his hand,

“yes,” I say,

“you are wise.”

Both men want something.

A prize to rip open

and sink their gluttonous lips into

like they do not know Daniel.

I want out of this room,

the sticky heat of summer

is beginning to upset

the restless lions.

Sorrows

The first plague that sunk into us told us how to see red,

the anger, either alien or overfamiliar, turned inwards

into our stomachs, acidic and bubbling until we choked

on the waters, and still we begged the Nile

for relief, sucking salt from our tears.

And then there was discomfort, slipping into our beds at night.

The women, familiar with the dissimilarity of abject slime

merely sighed in the expectation of their husbands,

but the sensation screamed of newness to the men, and they ran.

When lice came, we scratched ourselves raw and there was redness again,

until the streets were serenaded by shrieks, and long fingernails became fitting

for women who sewed new clothes when the others ripped theirs apart.

The wild animals were like old friends who tore apart already broken bodies;

this was the time that the women sang each other to sleep,

all we could do was offer meek comfort to each other,

telling stories of how this would never have happened

were it not for the pride that never touched us.

Women worried when pestilence came, unforgiving and without discrimination

to our livestock; without food, we starved ourselves intentionally,

hoping with fragile limbs that there would never be enough meat

on our bodies to substitute for sustenance.

Pained enough, we thought we were used to it when our bodies turned against us,

without anger this time, only vile sores that burst in the dead of night;

we soothed each other’s wounds, our hands familiar with battle scars

and hoped that it would be enough.

The end of days could not come faster than when the fire rained down on us.

Some brave women, tired of being sacrifices, ran towards the flames,

either weary and half-finished already, or aching to find a burning bush

through which salvation may lie for those who did no wrong.

An attack on our senses droned into nothingness as locusts fell,

their bodies used to punish us, a concept of which we wept for,

we knew intimately, and sobbed not for the chess board

but for the pawns who must always fall first.

It was strange, how much darkness felt like reprieve,

in those three liminal days where our songs were unburdened

and rang free across the devastated plains;

oh, those days we sang so loudly that it was almost over.

They were almost free, and we were almost able to go back

to how we were different before.

But tragedy seeps slowly in the night on the burning wings of angels,

and our firstborns were stolen.

I, still young, did not bear the grief of mothers, but I was the third child.

It’s harder to be going than to be gone.

Prayers to Eve

I imagine how soft the hands must have been

to crush supple, christened grapes into wine,

and I sip for longer, staring down the Deacon;

avert my eyes from the wrinkles that find

some hand between, a drop of wine on the palm,

pushing the lifeless red to lips, mine.

With the wood of the pews touching bare thigh

and someone either side of me, I pray, silently,

for the ghosts of the Vestal Virgins who were, too,

boxed into Heavenly pastures, to come and sing,

with cherry-wine mouths, that Hell will be most glorious.

I wish women were priests, and think of how tempting

it must have been for Eve to find gentleness

when Adam touched his remaining ribs - the beauty

of self, she must have eaten an abundance of fruits

grown from male seed, before the apple speaks of tenderness,

of the mirror that shows herself. The cruelty of the snake

burns, and Hell bleeds as punishment for unwritten crime.

But how beautiful it is, to think that God exists!

To think of him lying dead, splayed out,

or perhaps curdling into spoiled milk, festering

in the fetal position, plumes of Papal smoke

encompassing his body, the smell of stale cigarettes

and spilled wine, and a congregation chorus-echo of Last Rites.

I have never been sure how to worship, only the imperative

of the verb - to worship - to allow God to enter wherever he pleases

and to leave wildly, like horses trampling across northern grass.

I have known for as long as I have held privy to thought

that my body is not my own, I must open the gateway to my vessel

and let him free me from sin; Lord, help me,

but I keep finding God in the eyes of a woman.

Finding her at a crossroads is like finding myself in the dark,

forbidden, and the easiest thing my hands have ever led me to do,

except I can no longer recall whether any hymns sung of Eve;

temptation crowns her legacy and we remain treated this way,

like grapes, and there is power beyond omnipotence in accepting

that if we are going to be crushed, we may as well hitch our last breaths

on the lips of women, praying, eternally, for God’s eyes

to have been burned out by his own, masculine light.

Samson

Samson rips me limb from limb,

and I thank him, because God

gave him this power, and who am I,

lowly and lonely, to question

what flowing hair sinks beneath my body

as I commit myself to some kind of ending?

Then I am watching from below,

eternally reaching upwards, asking

for some recognition from either side;

which will claim me for their own?

Purgatory is a too-small coffin

for the only one who is neither good nor bad.

Samson steps over my body,

and I shudder in ecstasy,

perhaps to love a man was to destroy myself,

but false pleasure speaks testament

to how simple it would be

to pluck the hairs from his head.

Above me, Heaven song;

below me, Hell song.

Neither God nor the Devil will admit

that they are brothers singing in harmony,

and nobody will believe

the only person who can hear it.

And then I am in love with Delilah,

and how she did what no man could;

Samson was not flayed in battle,

but taken down whilst he slept

in his conceited neglect of the fact

that it was a woman who led Adam to bite.

Still, I am dead,

and Samson is not joining me.

His soul has been claimed by side unknown,

and here I lie,

coffin-sick and wondering

which direction I should wave my white flag.

Mockingbird Nest

Welcome to the council of Jezebel,

here are your sisters, your not-quite nuns

who tell you of false modesty,

and how easy it is to strip yourself to the bone.

You’ll be staying here for a long time

because nobody else wants you -

that’s okay, we’ll teach you how to want you

without manipulation or coercion.

We meet on Saturday nights,

and there’s all the red wine you can drink,

you can gorge yourself on bread

and we’ll call the act of gaining weight beautiful;

we’ll teach you that it’s self-preservation

to deny desirability for fulfilment.

You have your own room in this cloister,

and you’ll never have to sleep on the floor again.

We have a library, and a soft workshop

where you can take apart all of your broken pieces

and learn that you’re not a machine

and can live without them.

If you want to leave, you may,

but nobody has ever done that

so we’re not sure how to deal with regression,

but we do not fear it -

we never fear what we do not understand

because we are feminine beings designed to learn.

The council has no rules - we live free,

no leaves covering our bodies as shameful.

We paint each other using berries and apples,

and at night, when all of the stars have nowhere to guide us,

we sing like free mockingbirds,

revelling in the liberty of what we have to ridicule.

The Seraphim and I

Here, at the crossroads,

faced with the Seraphim,

I cannot make out

what it is supposed to be.

There’s a muted song

speaking of angels,

but I am versed in simple words

and know that the root

is of a snake, of the very same

entity that led Eden to ruin.

Its face is confused,

muddled like it’s being viewed

through a foggy mirror,

wisps of steam and uncertainty

cloud any discernible features

until one of us has to speak.

It has no voice, nor a need

for a voice, so I lend it mine.

I suppose it will answer in riddles,

or smite me on the spot,

but it stares, like nobody

has questioned its existence before.

And the road is still forked,

with no direction upon which

to question the existence

of a Celestial City.

Still, the Seraphim bores

into the marrow of my bones;

I feel it rooting around in there

for anything to judge me by.

It’s uncomfortable, but I am alive.

There are a lot of things in this world

that must have been created

to kill me, like God himself

decided that his finest work

should be one of destruction.

For an infinitesimal moment,

I am illuminated by everything,

and I understand that things only have power

if they believe that they do,

so I press on,

taking the path of the left hand.

The First Draft of Genesis

The only difference between God and Frankenstein

is the success of what they deemed their magnum opus,

and when it comes down to the end of days,

the Great Judge must turn his gavel inward,

lest he condemn his doppelgänger to an opposite fate.

It is a universal human experience to fail,

even more so to fail at the apex of triumph.

When God made the world, did he imagine

that it would go to waste?

Would it ever have crossed his mind that love is conditional,

at least for the flawed creatures he expected perfection from?

Does this, then, make God human?

Or just a Heavenly Lady of Shalott,

weaving a tapestry of emulation, of the very same

thing he cannot be.

It is considered blasphemous

to entertain the notion that God is inferior,

but is this born of punishment,

or of shame, of trying to save face?

It is stated so many times that the student will surpass the master,

and isn’t that what is happening here?

Perhaps God created trees, but humanity cut them down.

Destruction is just as artful as creation,

if not more so - there’s more finality in it.

It’s possible that God is too scared to ever end a story.

But we - our nation of Frankensteins -

will end everything.

Given the right tools, we’ll end the universe,

far beyond the reaches of this insignificant planet.

We’ll lay waste to God’s pride

and replace it with our own hubris.

We go down on our own sinking ship with smiles;

even if we can escape, we won’t.

We are cruel that way.

We will never accept fatherhood or responsibility,

but spite and death work hand in hand

at the fall of any empire -

what can be done to stop us?

We are fluent in the only language God speaks.

Still Rebirth

I want to say please don’t leave,

I still have your coat in my wardrobe

and it looks like you can’t have gone far,

and please don’t leave, I don’t know

where else I’m supposed to stay

when it’s two in the morning

and everything feels like communion,

and please don’t leave, I am having to confront

how selfish I am.

So you’re leaving, and I’m trying to work out

if I should pack my memories into little boxes

and pretend that you’ve died, and you’re leaving

so I’m on the floor in my bedroom thinking

about going somewhere and trying to find Judas

or at least a tree with sturdy branches and the end

of a rainbow with thirty silver coins as compensation.

And now you’ve left, or at least made the decision

to leave, and here I am again trying to wave you off

with images in my mind of the Titanic leaving behind

everyone who couldn’t afford to die so grandly;

you’ve left, and I’m using metaphors to talk about this

because it’s easier than genuflecting and joining

a faceless pew - sorry, don’t think I’m calling myself Jesus

because I’m not. Really, I’m not. But you’ve left,

so don’t I have the right to call myself what I want?

It’s not like you’re here to stop me. There’s that word,

gone,

like it’s final, like you’ve joined the laundry list

of everyone who said they’d be there forever. You’re gone,

and I’m promising myself that I’ll stop being addicted

to people, only cigarettes and cheap wine and the feeling

of missing something when it isn’t quite packed up

into all of the final moving boxes just yet.

2018-2019