Speak Not Of The Laudanum Quandary
Ashenspire
The vanity of the opportunist
And narcissism on an imperial scale
Breeding spite and despotic aches
Finding form in entitlement
To steep in bloody euphori
The despicable canvas
Bleached whiter than death
Solitary molecules wander
From receptor to receptor
Come, spiteful opiate!
Invoking bliss as brittle as rapture
Like the harlequin balanced
Between his stilts and the noose
The sovereign tongue contorts and molests
Its dance as meretricious as the poppy!
A foul lecher drooling bile on these windows!
On this pristine filth
We’ve made our bed, and lord knows
We won’t be telling the truth in it
A cobblestone chorus; with all the tenacity
Of oxygen bent double on phosphorus
The tearing of the robe
As the curtains in the temple
The stretching of the rope
As a sordid fundamental
I let the flesh persist such that
In transient and passing stupor, I exist
Speak not, child, speak not
There’s an art to it
A prickling of every pore
Each follicle an antenna
Crackling static over cold skin
Vasoconstriction on every
Frequently flung out frequency
Individuals all lined up in sequence
Elated and unabated, pulse and pulse again!
Ah! To plaster the walls with the bone dust
And to smear over the concrete
With bloody viscosity
All born in the gutter to gutter-borne orphans
All limbs and no legacy, all in this together?
Hah! I’ll believe it, I’ll let it grow l
Lke plaque, when my head zips up at the back
Down from the ballpoint comes a great new divide
Sintering these crystallites
We’re less catalyst and more cattle-eyes
Two-faced phases falling, failing
Flailing against the undertow
In the pretence that they’re not
Just atoms in the cycle of reactant flow
And, as many are the flaxen locks
Rudely torn from the heads of children
Many are the pawns thrown without ceremony
From this mortal board
The Queen moves unperturbed
But there’s a wanton amoral grip about her throat
Abhorrent and abundant, resplendent on the velvet
The papaver is germinating
Not for want of soil, nor water