On falling down the stitched leather rabbit-hole

The Tale of the Dissected Man

The Prosthetic Alphabet

A is a metal spider claw in the brickwork
B is full with sperm
C sweeps nestlings from the ground
D is a well without a bucket
E is a rooftop of turrets clogged with birds and frogs
F is a broken wall in a bomb crater
G holds kittens underwater
H pins legs to a table while fixing arms to the light fittings
I is a crowbar
J dredges oysters
K is a monkey in a burning tree
L will catch all the falling
M is a glasshouse frame, its windows broken by escaping plants
N is an iron lightning bolt
O is an astrolabe
P holds her breasts as she floats in the water
Q is an eye floating up from the depths
R is caught in the swirling strands of reeds with the eels
S winds wool in the hair
T is a piton hammered into a rockface
U will hang above the door to mark where the horse kicked
V splits water with a bank of sand
W is a hedge of hurdles
X holds itself open to all suggestions
Y is a funnel that brings all roads together
Z is a tapeworm coiled into a cough  

King's Quoit

Three red eyes shine in the black hill

While from the graveyard dunes

A tuneless wind of unhearable fairy music

Played on pipes of razorshell and netting

Reaches the ear

From the railway sand rise spikes

Of purple darts and trumpets firing heart-ceasing smoke

In trembling clouds

One green eye,

The rattle of legs beneath broomhead wings

A low growl from the stones

And above it a whistle through the teeth of an animal

The howling overture to

The Bait Diggers of 1933

With scorched fingers and velvet wood thighs

The clambering horses rise in dry and powdery lusts

From the shore

The predatory bonecrawling forms

Prise their way out of the burrows

In search of sleeping flesh

The lip skin bulbs of sparkling trowel heads

Shimmer to the lover’s touch

The washed skin ripples with swollen deep sea memories

The sunken toeprints of a man dropped into soft sand

On a beach of green moustaches

There are burnt hooves washed up in the foam

While the fetish sticks are black with use

And each round stone is a carved Ogham map

Later, in the time of hollow mountains

When minutes shine gold against a sky with its eyes shut,

The fairy horns sound again

Reveille for the naked monks

A recall to the 8 o’clock rock they cannot pass

My heart is the unknown hero lying under the cromlech

It slips away, down through the sand,

With each gulping peristaltic beat

My hair falls in pigeon wings behind my head

Fingers bristling with the dry spears

Hurled from the clifftops

Diving through fields surrounded by the mystery smoke

The reptile flowers coil around me

In the holes through walls and bushes

Where whistling echoes on the glowing face

And in numerous pairs we see

The murk ascending

I wear my dreams on my face

Weredog candlechild

In the grey dark of late winter, among the stones, ice tigers prowl the empty slates. Snowy gusts overturn marzipan sails, and we slide from the Turkish decks of scandal.

The blue-grey shadows fall on us from the hillside but she burns black, a dark lantern against the speckled snow rage. The cold swirls in smothering layers that swallow the light, and she burns blacker and blacker, this dark beacon, this summoning. Blinded moths hurtle extinguished into the dark star black hole.

At her centre shimmers a flame that burns without light. The lantern shutters flash and clatter to reveal a matchhead dark glow swaying upwards to its own dance. Untouched by snow or wind, untouchable, each leaping gesture throws wisps of smoke to wreathe and choke the night around us.

This is the end of misrule. Her order is the splendour of a self-sustaining chaos. No no, just because she has worn Nigerian costume does not mean that she is Nigerian herself.

She is the child of the candle.

I follow her flame as it burns out of the cellar, out of the room of mirrors, out of the walled corridor, out of the velvet hall, out of the puppet theatre, out of the bar with bare floorboards. Through the dancing flickers of her black combustion roam and prowl a dog, a tiger, a wolf, with human eyes behind their snarling foaming. She burns steel-grey with animal hair and black snow. She fears her candlehead will consume her, but it calls all those who also change themselves into animals to her side. Our howling will echo through the frozen rivers.

White bones of an evolutionary future