Poems of Domestic Cruelty

All four poems were first written around 2011

Misogynist

Two red eyes are stuck to the black
of my childhood, in the foreground of the frame,
my stereo and dirty books hovering behind.
Since nineteen I've been tunnelling back
through the months, then years, towards
her body like a lone island.

When we met on the patio
your bracelets caught the sun. Fugitive beams
bathed in your glass, propped against the dying ice.
And I had tunnelled all day long
to reach you there, mother,
hiding yourself in this prettier form.

All women share the same spirit,
like the strain of some disease
ploughing through the rat kimgdom.
You're her, the bitch, creator and scum,
who bore me like a dead tumour.

Your punishment is still a germ, evolving all the time.
Regardless what you say, my dear, you're her, you're her, you're her.

statement

he left work at six o'clock.

we trapped him down the alleyway.
i hit the back of his head with a brick
hidden in my mum's stocking,
then harry held him down as i worked his spine.

a bird chirped somewhere nearby.
a leaf blew against my left shoe.
i kicked it off. it was like kicking off a dog.

i got a lot of blood on me but it was okay
because i was wearing my dad's mack,
and harry had brought his sports bag
so i could stuff it inside.
we did it because harry's dad said he was a pervert.
he lived by himself and was always giving
sweets to kids. james said he looked at him once
as he was walking to school.
james had thrown a stone at his window
but still.

after we did it we left him there.
he kind of whined a bit but it was
drowned out by that bird.
i kicked some more leaves then we went
home for tea.

The Passion of the Wife

I release my longing through small doors.
While boiling eggs as you showered                
I thrust my hands into the pan,

holding them there for as long as I could.
I screamed and saw the face of Christ
looming just above the stove.

Vinegar from the sponge in His mouth
dripped into the water,
and I wept with satisfaction.

Later, when you'd come downstairs,
you asked me why I screamed.
I asked you why you didn't run

when you heard me screaming.
I couldn't hold a pen all day.
I told the priest it was an accident;

I'm sure he thinks you're hurting me.
There is a truth somewhere,
in churches, symbols, and The Book.

In accepting this truth I've denied your falsity,
the deceptive fact of your penis,
like songs that heathens promise are pure.

When it throbbed against my leg
as you held me,
your face in a vise,

begging me to handle it,
I closed my eyes and thought of Him;
but of course you went no further.

I know there's goodness inside you,
somewhere beyond that mindless lust,
which views my body as more than a home

for ours and God's children.
As your wife I will help you find it,
as well as your own small doors.

The Savages

Me and the lads were scooping up steak with our hands
while the lass cried outside. We'd hitched her to a porch railing
and stood in line the night before, me at the front,
being everyone's pa. No other human life has set foot here
since the war of times ago. My lads aren't raised on ink and page.
Sun is son and land is sand and would is wood and the lass is game;
"sister/daughter" means nothing; neither does "brother/son".
(sun son sun son sun son sun son)
Images are faggot play. One lad was drawing in the land
so me and the others smashed his head.
Now he staggers everywhere. He's not cried like the lass, though,
who cries so much I wonder if she'll wash herself away,
like Alice, that girl in the hole I heard about as a lad.
Before the lass her ma was hitched to that post,
when the war still lived and arts weren't quite extinct.
A few painters and poets hid underground,
beating out their images. All that's left is literal.