Breaking the Surface

injury arrives on the outside

a scratch a weal a wen
brazen disfigurement

Two Minutes

I don’t need silence

for memory to work
even when remembering
becomes that different thing
remembrance

End All

one hundred
years of war
to end all wars

gravestones
names inscribed
the written record
the dying and the dead
on every side
ledgers of death

Take This

Take this, my body – break it – 

and this, my blood – to drink – 

thin, like rain.

Lost Wax

The emperor dresses his flesh;
the fat-cat god-king pimps
his chiselled dog-face to vulpine,
his brillo-hair, like steel-wool,
as tarnished as his iron will.