James Shearman
Sliver me in lies
Adorned in paper cut-up tangles, bread with iron water holes,
Whole they feed me into my mouth and nostrils,
Whole they sliver me in lies and wanton murderous plague,
Adorned in ashtray essence and misery, coleslaw envy,
Diving school.
Dressed in confessional erratic hypnotism, drip my sweat and
Lick me up in distress and phantom amorphous rage,
Hole out my hole to infinity – diving school has taught you well,
Mourn in maximum black tunic, wares and tears and
Tares and wears that same old smug expression daily.
I look around a red cage of my own crafting and wonder about
intricate and delicate subtleties, the feeble hue of frail experience.
OD/DS/MOD/DELAY
I tried to trip and stumble and collapse at your feet,
I tried to greet you with a morning procession of drones,
I tried to end my havoc before the fifteen minute mark,
And I tried to dress you up in abstraction and make you my desire.
I tried to end my stress and strife and exhaustion and it worked,
And I tried to caress the sweet sonorous lips of seduction,
I tried to speckle the sun in a glimpse of desolate fields,
And I tried to deconstruct your mind’s image into crumbling debris.
Why do you feel unfinished and open to interpretation when you are mine?
Why do you feel unseen and unheard and unknown when your name is right
before us?
Why do you feel like dying today and living the next, to show your grief in bloodstained legacy that mocks reality and dies continually?
43