Look How We Are (from Upside Down)

Afraid of the dawn and its sister sun
the blood juries swarm to mother's dust;
welcome to the day when the tarnished sleep,
pissing in hooked mouths
and choking on a beggars heels.
Oh wondrous claw as camp as lillies
as thy years gridlock in the great scheme,
prime those forks and tails
and prepare the murder scam over cancerous Life.
But revel not in sullen soups
for darkness has limits on light;
swing high dear grave dolls and dandies
for the rabid sting that furs your clammy tendons
has you dead as pie crust...

@ Steven Francis poems 2011

Lunarscape

It all draws in on itself ~
everything, all must shrug off starry dust
to grow.
Break our cactus cages and venture
to where no horizon lacerates the view;
a place where solid lines are ignored
because of vulgar limits.

The glass edge ~
a momentary lapse into structure,
binding souls to brick without pause,
forging earth to sober nerve.
Grab the eagles tail
to soar above the sickly hell
and reach a liver'd mantle.

Pray tell the holy stars
and religious serenades
that ghosts strike and devils lose;
the burning of hymns is a
phantom ceremony of nightmare.
Walls, bridges, acres and territories
mindless limits to pit and flame ~
insect chants
from atomic guts...

@Steven Francis poems 2010