Funeral

a burning cold haze out there
through the trees fiery black clouds
and summer's promise flickering out

funeral faces for the ugliest dances
hope in the dark unworthy places
between the thighs, behind the teeth
the earthen mouthed lovers cry out

a vicious incestuous love
with one's hand down one's trousers
touching but only just, and wishing it were gone
somewhere locked in some vile dungeon

the ceiling mounting and thrusting
in the cool chill of the evening the birds
chatter and gossip about your terrible body
fingering and pointing at the out of place hairs

bloody fingers claw at the sheets and rest
lying alone and wanting the beast to
feed your virgin desires in the least sensible prophecy
that the heart ever dreamed

lusting after cold nights and blue balled mornings
burning all the clothes you can't bear to smell
the ghosts all gone now but spirits remain in glasses
strewn about and sideways spilling their stink

wanting only to be forgotten under a black sheet
and carted out under dark medieval skies and breaking television's
evil spell

lost and untroubled by vanity

Gloom

Back again in the gloom
Lingering shadows wallow in corners
Chattering ghosts smile darkly
Talking up my failures

The bare walls ache with heresy
Shattering the illusion of power
and there behind the plaster
the barefaced cheek of empty mirrors

All blackened planets seep through
windows as empty as bare walls
stunning silence wrecked by rain
and effortless painless sleep

All around the hum of lonely souls
devouring dinners and licking up semen
cradling their lovers and speaking
in tongues so rough they burn the flesh

Dirty ashen faces in dirty ashen boxes
all dark and black like so much coal
or soot, or cotton bedsheets
Skin as vile as the day that tired them

All lights and empty faucets drip incandescence
luminous airs and still bleak faces
angry silence and vacuous burbling
mumbling through bleak corridors

Back again in the gloom
back in the earthy box it seems
back to the tired gaze and satelite feelings
back to the gloom, back back,