INSIDE SOMEBODY ELSE'S SOUL

I have raved
down subconscious alleyways
covered in mud graphene and silicone

pecked by butterflies
with the faces of rats
and surrounded by passions
I barely understood

I have raved
Oh yes I have raved

I have exploded
at the bottom of thoughtless
oceans
embraced by hysterical seahorses
caught between the mad laughter
of blissed-out porpoises
and staggeringly
intransigent sharks

I have exploded
Oh yes I have exploded

Inside some messed-up future
where nobody has a soul
I sometimes crawl and dither.
I'm only trying to convert myself into
a dijinn and save the world
where's the harm in that?

I have upset the cart
I have tossed rotten apples into
salads
and
never had the slightest doubt
that all the bickering and
background interference
is the only true way
to alternate
between
elevated hopes
and
deflated
consequences

I have somersaulted
through hoops of reason
and trod tripwires
of exuberance

I have raced
through columns of
combustible gas
and zigzagged
through calamities

And I didn't stop there

Yes, yes
I have somersaulted
raced
and zigzagged
and I didn't stop there

That beauty you were talking of
the one I found in the courtyard
I let her loose

Now she calls everything impermanent

Form of a woman
snake donkey, lion goat
dijinns
fire fire fire
ruins jungles marshes

Inside you
everything's on fire

I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT

Y'know somewhere out on Highway 61,
or Highway 57
or whichever fucking highway
it is that ends up
in Chicago

Out there
with the sun spitting down
with ghastly giant Irish type crows
fluttering about,
with great fields of cornflake corn
waving in the breeze

With Bette Davis by my side
a couple of 30s hoodlums hanging around
a bit further off,
and Billie Holiday waiting for me
in a car with the motor running

yeah, right
with my Hitchcock gaze
and filthy fingers of hate
with my visions of bloodthirsty cherubim
and Mohammed looking over my shoulder

God be praised,
with silent grace
and noisy enthusiasm
with my eyes half-filled with tears
half-filled with something I can't
quite put my finger on

I will
I will
I will rip your heart out

ON HAVING MY HAIKU REJECTED BY THE JOURNAL 'MODERN HAIKU'

I sit rejected
a sad unwanted kitten
waiting to be drowned