This is an excerpt from my long poem, “The Death of the Bird King.” The book is available here.

The Bird King’s pregnancy is an unpleasant experience. He gags, scowls,
knotted up with the coiled
thing
feasting inside him.

***

You should see the Bird King feeding his young: a touching sight!
He pukes up a porridge
of dogs’ heads and human limbs.
Razor mouths guzzle.

***

The Bird King’s first son and heir
is a wretched amalgam
of scales tusks
saliva hunger.

His useless wings twitch when he’s angry.

***

The Bird King plays God,
shaping an Adam,
an Eve,
from mud,
rotten bark,
crushed animals.

Adam has red eyes and burbles disconsolately.
Eve howls, cavorts and farts.

But the Bird King’s favourite creation is his lab-grown homunculus,
a miniature parody of its maker.
It doesn’t grow.
It’s barely a maggot.
The Bird King pets it and kisses it, hisses it to playful madness.

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