GOTHIC

GOTHIC

Mary Shelley has fallen into the acid bath. 
Dr Polidori manacles himself to the sideboard. 

Shelley is mad, moneyed and red. 
He can afford to be an anarchist. 

Keats breathes TB into Byron's face. 
black Gothic blood drips into time's clockface. 

Everywhere pale vampires extend one putrid claw. 
Time to time travel please, my hat and cape. 

I'll be in Cairo by dawn or ride across the hot sands 
Into the raw, biting wind aghast at the horrors I've seen. 

 THE BLACK SQUARE 

After Kasimir Malevich 

The superstitious hungry millions flee 
From the concentrated 
Fear and anger of the black square. 
Logic and reason are sad 
In the water like a dying moon. 
The stars are underwater too, 
flickering in the vortex. 
Beyond the saddened 
Desperation of deeply twilit, 
Reddened nights, 
Shunned by the galaxies. 
The black square has wiped 
Out certain memories 
But the ones that are intact 
First feeling of snow 
First taste of lemon 
First excited kiss…. 

CROCODILE STREET 

In the summer of Constantine (and the nine lives ending in turbulence) 
The seed of great theatrical suns 
The marble white mosques of Constantine 
Arched in mayhem and anarchy 

The winter hills in the east 
The four horsemen have trampled 
Down the west, a ball of flame 
Dips into the salty nonchalance 
Of the lagoon. The music 
Is a shrill orchestra of competing voices. 

Please play the music again, please paint the water blue 

Please bring the distance closer, please give us rain 

Stop the drumming and the drumming, the thunder 
Is closer, the pale light is bitter, please send it away, away… 

Because the sun is a ball of flame, because the music is shrill 
The boom boom of backfires racking the night 

That is glimmering under starlight… 

Turn the lights off! Turn the lights off! Turn the lights off! Turn the lights off! 

Paul Murphy