1: Blood
Already made of blood largely of blood more blood than imagination desire ambition conscience memory
I am a readymade in red
In a sequestered corner of the gallery (Do not touch)
Formless
Wet, salty, warm
Don’t hold up a mirror to my shameful shapeless face
I’ll probably faint
When I was nine years old I passed out at school
Because of words:
and dashed their brains out on the rocks
Words have held horrors for me ever since
I worry that people will say brains, stab and most of all blood
These words can flip my switch, trip me, slip me over into nothing
Most of all blood
Bl spews from the tongue, ood lands heavily
A corpse sound
My favourite Shakespeare play is Macbeth
I don’t like seeing what I’m made of
Or thinking about it
2: Teeth
I remade myself in teeth / out of teeth / from teeth / my teeth / who else’s / they were mine / my dental record was unique / my dental record was my blueprint / you could make me / fake me / bake me / delicious / from just that / just that dental record / worse than DNA / a worse betrayal than DNA / so I remade myself using my teeth as the sole medium / I was a self-sculptor / a red-handed god / a slave to myself / it took ages / the teeth didn’t always want to stick together / the teeth didn’t ever want to do anything / sometimes resisting / sometimes falling for gravity / falling to the floor / enamoured of the ground / grinding themselves into the ground / grinding teeth / grounded teeth / still I persisted / I fought on / clacking teeth together like sharp white Lego / never letting go of the picture lodged behind my eyes / my selfie / my self image / my imagined self / left foot bigger than right / handsome-ugly asymmetrical face / lower right jaw down and out / in surrealist Paris and hot hell London / hands gesturing grandiloquently / signifying nothing / man-chest / boy-arms / I didn’t dare give myself a cock / let alone a dick / a willy / a penis / a manhood / anything short of hyperbole would have been risible
My off-white near-totality
Needed a good brush
I hadn’t flossed in years
(The lies with which I have plied my smiling dentist!)
But it was good enough for now
Nearly good enough
Enough
3: Mist
a cloud of tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere
a cloud of tiny teeth suspended in the atmosphere
a cloud of white blood cells suspended in the atmosphere
a cloud of neurones suspended in the atmosphere
a cloud of thoughts suspended in the atmosphere
clouded thoughts suspended in the left hemisphere
crowded thoughts upended in the right hemisphere
rowdy thoughts ended in the noosphere
randy thoughts in bed
rancid doubts embedded
random debts
condom deaths
nom nom meth
om pests
wrong pets
schlong vets
shocking tests
stocking arrests
stock characters at best
sick characters in vests
slick characters undressed
Cyrillic characters going to press
lyric characters flowing East to West
lyric poems feverish with beasts and nests
lyric poems feverish with ceasefires and peaceful tears
ridiculous poems farting yeast and treacle years
ridiculous thoughts imparting blighted bleak creaking fears
cribbed thoughts impounded in the tight biosphere
crow thoughts upended in the right hemisphere
clouded thoughts dead-ended in the left hemisphere
a cloud of thoughts depending on the atmosphere
a crown of thorns descending on the lost seer
a cloud of neurones ending in beer
a cloud of white blood cells suspected of murder
a cloud of white teeth suspended in the mouth
a crowd of witches suspended in the moon
a can of worms suspended in your room
a can-can kicking rage
a clown kicking against age
a cloud of words on the page
a blank page
a blank face
a bank phase
a banned phrase
a bad phrase
bad days
sad daze
slight haze
white haze
missed gaze
mist
