SteNic (The Horror Replaced)

I step outside of EverWorld
lost to hate.
Ravens no longer roost
in my ribcage
pecking at the melody within.
These bones cradle a heart
as gentle as rainbows,
the terrible cry of the reaper bird
has hushed.

Shadows clot no more,
she is light
my happy ending,
the madness bit the bullet.

I had lived like a rumour
in a corner,
with scabbed lungs
padded liver
and both claws on hemp rope,
but nightmares end
all godless things must die.

Nana Love has touched me,
razors have turned to feather
the chainsaw song is heard,
madness no longer a crime.

Alone on drugged plains
I had twitched like a Turkish dancer
for attention,
needing to drown the feral crazes
in applause.
Hunting for a crowd
to hide in,
to escape ravages of solitary
the gothing extreme.

But no more.
My plague queen has Christened me
and tamed the tumour,
true love iced the loathing.
Humbly caught
I cannot miss any of those kisses.

Fevered creations have had
their funerals,
whipping posts turned to ash.
Nana Love catches me
this is forever,
I am born
this is my birth.
New York has never been
so supersonic...

@Steven Francis poems 2004

Young Wolves To Entertain

Wind me up again
people of the natter,
I will sing a song
(yeah just say when)
of Love and dogs
of razors and angels,
stab a stiletto
subtle queen of fang.

To gorge on distant cultures
in vague hours of distress,
I am well fed
fed well on bacon rind and cider,
glory to the never heard
ignorance keeps me sane.

A sensitive fiend
from cradle to eternity,
shaped from the breaking wheel
and basket of horrors.
And while juniper candy
fails to hook the fillies
I burn my dancing clothes in hell.

These teeth (clenched and sun drenched)
brushed with old newspapers
to tickle slap on smiles
of reassurance,
which pander to energetic urges
of distemper.
Viva melancholia!
Steal me a catastrophe.

The crisis has bled
I cannot quell actions
I cannot control the accents.
Eulogies on blotting paper
nauseating phantom.

And sadly
like the disfigured peacock
in Narcissus's attic
I fold away lacerations
into moth woven purses
to await the arrival
of a new crowd
to tease and poke...

@Steven Francis poems 1997

Chewing The Blue Chalk

The rain don't fall
the sun won't shine
but the wind cannot blow any harder.
I did stupid things
to impress you sugar,
they only pushed you farther.

This faceless life
in a prison cell
faking death to make time fly,
I didn't beg
when you pulled my wings off,
and never asked you why.

I discovered Heaven
after coming home from hell,
unpacked my bags and nursed the scars.
All the drunks I'd been
I gave back to the devil
no more hangovers, no more bars.

But where were you
on the eve of clarity?
Leaving a diary filled with sadness.
Those written confessions
left me crouching
on the tongue of madness.

Come kiss crazed girl
my favourite dancer
let me love you fresh and true.
Paint me black
or a neon red
but please don't paint me blue.

Sober now so strange a land
like testing bath water
in the dark,
the storm has quit
the sun's arrived
flushed from a recent spark...

@Steven Francis poems 2000

Soliloquy Of Captives

Starved and it stretches
the prison cell,
cast an eye into
undeserving hell.

The bars of a hunter
behind which people can see,
hearts of the hunted
which long to be free.

Apes in their apehouse
tamed tigers like drunks,
snakes in glasshouses
resembling dead elephant trunks.

King of the jungle
the lion's rule,
now standing smaller
and whipped to a stool.

Lifeless are cages
that hold those weakened strong
and soulless are those
to whom they belong.

Killer whales with balloons
perfore for applause,
chained to the water
for no other cause.

Paper hat cheetahs
looking listless and still,
spoonfed crocodiles
robbed of their kill.

One cell to another
most distressing in sight,
the day smells of children
tasting freedom at night.

Wolves in the doghouse
monkeys nailed to the trees,
while a polar bear melts
away from the freeze.

A panther fell foul
as a trap had been set,
she struggles like whiplash
in a stinging net.

If God made the beasts,
the Heavens and earth,
shouldn't each living thing
be free from birth?

Spots on the leopard
are as gambled as dice,
a sickening coat
for the highest price.

Rhino in Africa
lived under many suns
then safaris arrived
with drugs in their guns.

Away in the distance
hyenas laugh,
and high amongst leaves
is a wary giraffe.

Cobras spit without
venom or fang,
whilst bats in the belfry
have no place to hang.

Bearded spiders
four legs and one eye,
weaving rusted webs
which untangle the fly.

Great Whites and dolphins
swim battle scarred waves,
taking the bait and getting
hooked to their graves.

In captivity we create
only animal clones,
the deserted oasis is now
a landscape of bones.

Swift on his hooves
but the zebra is caught,
and flown on clouds
to barbed fences is brought.

And what of the camel
with her handcuffed back?
Spitting on crowds
her only attack.

Circus eyes
looking back at you,
from their iron rooms
dying two by two...

@Steven Francis poems 1985

Bleached Backdoor Blonde Pornography

Page three darlings
stalk the shelves
like shadows on gravy,
from bottles filled with televisions.
Treble chinned currencies
and rogue doves,
dragons in love sick fumes.

There go the crew
as heavy as a belly full of binges
and flushed like ashtrays,
feeding on doses of plastic passion.
Welcome junior!
Hold on tight to your
greased up lightning
shot down china dynamite
jailbird sleaze.
Gin'd up fetishes
are game as football
here in the coffee pits.

Listen to the song of fantailed dancers
lined like cocaine
on a hobo's gritty tongue,
as they move along rows
of whiskey sucking moustaches
and calloused fingertips.
Is this glamour?
Are there real jewels?
Can dogs grow flowers
on this ghost train?

Put doubters to sleep
there are no party tricks
at this Idle Fayre
because worms don't see the stars
from holes in frosted hearts.
Sixth senses cannot see
from coshed eyes,
peep show pirates
bin bagged.
Goggle-eyed and rounded up
slapped down monsoons,
pretty pearlies horizon bound...

@Steven Francis poems 1999

Flying Song

Every fear
a dead man dream
a snipers kiss
on latino lips.
Childrens happy graffiti
sewn onto ghost legends
by greying kitten whiskers.

Camera blinks
lens filled with murder
sequels are never this good.
Chipped teeth
a poets pearls,
wisdom bleeds from melancholy.

The return of a reaction
exit wounds like graves,
viva la gravola!
A sword slices the veil
truth lets out,
vicious to feline born.

January winds
shotgun the June sun
applaud its attitude.
There was a hole here once
its gone now,
stinking in the underworld.

Little truths
honest as dewdrops,
noble bruises
part of our religion.
Eccentricity is seeing
angels in coffins.

Trust and faith
are what the brave have
tucked into their flabby mouths.
To define angst
scatter the monkey
onto plagues...

@Steven Francis poems 1999

The Cure For A Lemming

A bus
picks up the skins
and leeches,
the busted wealthy.

I plug my ear holes in
to drown the atavistic din
of vulgar sins,
while the aged guard their passes
I am misfit to the masses.

The tin shuttle
stops for a crash ahead
(wonder who is dead?)
My pulse feels the itch
of a jawless black angel.

I strain against the glass
my heart bold as brass
to see the wounded pass,
as others around me
try hard not to see.

A man
waves us on and on we go,
vipers to our funerals
tigers for lust
the love of the dead.
On we drive
like a murder of crows.

I spot a buzzard in the sky
before I close my eyes
to dream of its prey about to die.
A young ladt coughs
I open them again to watch her breasts lift and drop.

This tender chaos
the journey
the slapstick comedy,
boredom and cruelty
everyone is thinking of death
or their world in solitary.
Lemmings try
and I know why...

@Steven Francis poems 2001

Sparrow Grows To Eagle, Eagle Eats Itself

I am dying
not lying

And trying
no crying.

Might be a lesson
in this depression

A starless stigmata
clueless impression.

Swim a mile
over the river vile

Then wait a while
for a long gone smile.

Quiet things grow
into a horror show

Mad as a camel
etched on ones brow.

One flash of summer
alights on my face

Until one million storm clouds
come in its place.

Feathers become hammers
hammers will stop

The peace becomes bomb
and the bomb will drop...

@Steven Francis poems 2000

Tradition Of Rebellion

The haunted,
feral ghouls gossip
careless erotica
and groom their barbed whiskers.
Tongue'd mourners
carved from glaciers,
I spy the endless appetite,
but I lie
when I spy.
Glazed terrorism
bleeding clouds,
weeping psychotics
like goldfish in my heart,
crawling to my mind.

As a hunchbacked Buddah
or broken Jesus
I walk through misery to seek a joy,
but still I hear the gossip of the wild
and still I see trappings of lust.
The pain, suffering and spite
I feed on
fuels my collision,
satisfies my morbid, blackened eyes,
quenches fires in my stomach.

I am ghoul
to the audience,
I am executioner
to peace;
I thrive to the dead
I am wild for the dying.
Bury me among enemies
so that I may lift a sword
and then,
be ghoul nor phantom or ghost
no more...

@Steven Francis poems 2001

Lil' Bone

We all die
why?
Why do we die?
Are we all
too shy?
Like a crippled fly
with a tear in its
complicated eye.
We all die,
so why do we cry?

@Steven Francis poems 2001

Tourism (Car Parks & Alleys)

I see it all from here,
crooks, dealers, drunkards
and lovers.

This must be
where God comes
to watch over His masses.

In the left wing
I spy a lady
yelling at something.

When I look right
I notice her husband ballooned with bags
being nagged to the core.
Right mirror at the wrong time.

I flick the radio on
to drown the din,
a newsflash reveals another sin.

I lurk;
from the rear view
I spot a drunkard sleeping,
and quickly snap my neck away.
I see that reflection every day.

Darkness descends,
surely this is the place
for angels.

Through shadows
I see two lovers stop,
their tongues entwined.

Slowly I wind the window down
to hear a sound
I can barely remember.
My skin has long forgotten
what it is to touch
and so I watch.

The yellow light of the car park
makes the lovers look like corpses,
as dead as I.

The woman leans against
the graffiti scribbled wall
and almost disappears.

I watch as her hands
run down her mates back
like a fishmonger stroking a kipper.

The drunkard behind
has gone,
if drunkard he was.
I see no empty bottle
or discarded plastic bag,
I smell no urine.
Angels play tricks
and they love disguises.

The gothic erotica
continues in front of me,
they are alone as I sink into my seat
to lust on chic breasts and muscle.

I wait
I watch,
I listen.

My eyes are everywhere
tonight.
I feel a part of something
and yet as I watch the bodies
end their loving,
a tear on my cheek
floods the million miles
between us.

This hulking shadow is where I can see
no drunkards or lovers really.
And when the neon dims
the blindness comes.
I fold up the glass
deaf I am now...

@Steven Francis poems 2001

Fran The Mannequin

The make up
has washed down his face
along with the pony-tail
which slithers on his back.
Frog prince dances
in the middle of the road
so that everyone knows
he lives.

Vodka and orange
church of MTV,
tramp with a ego
and nicotine patches.
Dirty fish in shallow waters
eyeing up the barbies.

Cheap shoes
on his villain feet
this is no life for him,
one of the beautiful urchins
in the waters sheen.
Brush off the cocaine
young Fran of Pepsi Street,
cook the fat boy
in flashy binges.

Gel on toast
bleach and coffee,
modern man
in Forbes magazine.
Dirty fish in shallow waters
chatting up the barbies.

An ogre in the city
with mother's boyish grin,
guide the rat race
under the table
where the piston screws
in nine to five.
A loner
loving life in a
goldfish bowl.

King of video
disco poet,
teenage racer
crazy hero.
Dirty fish in yellow waters
checking out the barbies...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

In The Middle Of A Corner

I am a roller
rocking on the porch,
a drug crazed celebrity
I am.

I am a strong man
in the grip of a hangover,
I nurse a beer belly
I am weak.

I am a clown
feeding off laughter,
an addict to darkness
I am.

I am a bully
playing sticks and stones,
crying for attention
I am victim.

I am a tourist
looking for God,
wondering where faith would hide
in a city.

I am a prisoner
for sins of my youth,
on the silk of ghosts
I sit...

@steven francis poems 1995

Frozen Veins In Sunburnt Park

Khay
hold the ball
pump it up
watch it fall.

Take a bus
to the park,
score by the paddling pool
feed the shark.

Khay
sit on those swings
back and forth
on sickly things.

This shiny city
yours tonight,
no escape
the beckoning light.

On climbing frames
like hungry monkeys,
hang out
handsome junkie.

Khay
go down the slide,
a cobbled road
a septic ride.

Devils dressed
as Santa Clauses
feeding addicts
spastic pauses.

Frozen mouths
too tired to bark,
Khay lay down
in Sunburnt Park...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Keats On Heat

Hockey eyed
slack jawed
licked haired lover,
where is you?

I wait
baby faced
iced lungs
by the locked door,
dumb phone
jammed window;
for you
to call or kiss
love and argue,
take mine eyes from me.

Heartbeat
there you are,
criss cross
there you go;
tongue tied
my soul forever,
throwing echoes
at thy fire...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

St Fennawine Fianna In The Fever Temple

Howls are a' calling
the spear spangled alkies
from their kipper cold bible fog,
while machine gun mantras
baby tarantulas
and Spanish tanned ciders,
sell themselves
as cures for hangovers.

The tango pimps of Sodom and Gomorrah
give dancing cramps
to the light heeled holiday ladies
as porn bedraggled romeos
style themselves on videos
of twelve inch heroes.
Frostbitten Venus
woo the DJ's.

Tender smoked Chicago blues
serenade sulking pop stars
who wait in their binge cradles
while the devil coaxes Barbie to sin.
Praise sugared mud
for blushing bloods
as crocodiles flood
the Soho milk,
snapping at cold turkeys.

No more dead ends arrive
to peace out the gin wailing hooligans
after the buzz has hit.
New Orleans with its coffee casket jazz
is coming down to earth.
An old man's ebony lady
digs junked crazes,
king snake places
and sun lung'd faces.
Cry bullets
kick the F....

Welcome to the wingding,
as morning jaundice spills
from drug induced shrapnel wounds
this flu is for the taking.
Olive skinned
lushed up and loved,
there it goes
it sees and knows
the magic
behind the doped-bone...

@Steven Francis poems 1999

Prising With A Splinter

I am Death
in a city of euphoria.
I am cunning
and yet my guile
could never create utopia,
for our generation drowned
when our fathers were born.

I will take you
begging on bandaged knees.
Mercy has no place here,
my heart is the shade on graves.
These eyes are dew
on the grass above stone lullabies.

My fingers reach out
like wilted flowers on cemetery gates,
waiting to hang your soul
on my aged bone.

I can be either
envy or greed,
or the blood stain on a rusted knife.
A noose dangles from my sunlit fangs
making victims swing
whenever I inhale.

Beware!
Death has lost its romance,
lost its patience
lost its mind.
Where will you go when I arrive?
And will it be to paradise?
Or to the twisted tantrums
beneath the sea?

Rest in peace,
but rest is already in pieces
so fold your hands and thank your fathers,
for the circus that awaits
was created by their chaos...

@Steven Francis poems 2001

Cigarettes & Ashtrays

There is cunning on my table,
tiny cancers in a coffin
with leather handbag lips
so shiny as they pucker the surface
of the heavy water
atop the desk I made in school.
Knives on flint
souls in a coffee jar,
the little bullets
spit back and forth
amongst shipwrecks and greenstuff
like whispering comets.

Underwater with the blind
there are angels on their way to stars
looking for a bed,
like rain in a china cup
hungry for tea-bags to rest on.

I spy quick moods
in the ripples when the light goes out,
twinkling hangovers and oils
dancing in space,
shards of tranquility with shifty eyes.
Ah such artful lords with scaly guises
buzzing, buzzing,
buzzing, buzzing,
murders in the darkness...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Smiling At Rapists

I am suffocating
in these dying flames.
I can handle the Hate
but not the Love,
just a kiss from anywhere
would pacify the storm.

Forever weeping
by the one armed bandit
begging for a spark
to ignite my belly.
They don't see the trembling
under this beard,
my quicksilver friends
(my enemies).

End of cruelty,
the stagger in my story
is burning like Vietnam
on this moon pinched face.
I sense a mood change,
a skulking Nazi,
is it the devil
trying to finger my privacy?

Is there a corner
of quiet shades where I can hide?
Or a bloated theatre
where I could scream unnoticed
and shelter from blood and coca-cola?
Where upon these frowns
will I find serene milk?
Am I to forgive?
And will it remedy this clicking heart?

The rages struggle
as I tie them to my bones
and turn my cheek toward daylight
where brother souls hang out.
These junkie cravings
for revenge cannot stay,
with their prolonged agonies
and fiery thirst.
Gothic wishes must no longer run
along excited nerve endings,
if I am to be calmed
I must be smiling at my sinners...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Old Man's Hobby, Shining In His Grave

There is no sight
in these wide woody eyes
which used to count stars in the skylight.
Or flesh
ribbon'd on these bones,
that held my darling to my chest,
barrel-like with pride.

Vanished
(but never the pride)
my tattooed trunk has been turned to splinter
by a heart which fed hungry flames
to the dragon stretched across my stomach.

Where are the memories
inside this haggard head of mine?
I rage through themes of Love
and episodes of life when life was fine,
I seethe back again,
times and faces disappearing
the instant I brush against the pulse
I keep for company.

Where do ghosts hide?
Where do they go?
The milk which used to ignite my blood
and feed the stray mad dogs,
is seeping through my fingernails
ready to stain the coffin
as I claw my way inside.

No sultan's promise
or candy eyed horizons
left to bronze these bones of mine.
No spark left or rock or roll
to sleep off in my widowed bed,
the place which now is rattling to my death,
smothering romance,
cradling this withered shell
like a rock pool womb.

Unable to recognise the spirit
beneath rumours of chronic choirs,
I click my thumbs like toy soldiers
smashing daisy chains,
firing bogey men into a empty sky.
No sight nor strength
no love hangs from my crooked frame,
but faith will see me
back amongst those stars beyond the skylight...

@Steven Francis poems 1999

MyFireBurnsBrighterEveryday

Felt quiet real quick
like a honeybee on cola,
good once again
testament to happy endings.
Saint to pissed off victims -
gatherer of,
mother of,
fiends and woe
I am my only destiny...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Red Light (Hunger.Crash)

Everyone's a celebrity
just so you know,
from dragons on the news
to kids snorting blow.

Its 'Me versus Me'
in publicity matches,
fighting for fame
and the fire it catches.

No talent no matter
its a free for all,
applaud celebrities
while artists fall.

Media crash
at the pouting tv,
gossip columns
for the girl in row Z.

Mug shots on tee shirts
killers to kings,
these just two
of fame's favourite things.

Look at you
on the tabloid grey,
you weren't God last week
or God today...

@Steven Francis poems 2006

Endless Machine

Spank my funk
there's footsteps in the fog.
Tonight
someone will rip my shroud
and sex the fury.
There's footsteps in the fog.

Creepy crawly
down you fall-y
there's breath on skin,
flesh like lead.
This night
a ghoul will tempt the ghost,
stripped of jackdaw colour.
There benightmares in the fog.

Stick you
with my iron cross,
this evening
hellfire will come home.
Torches dance like electric eels
there's murder in the fog.

You pose like a chaos angel
pumping up my veins,
but tonight
evil is on your back
Darkness changes in the light,
I see red on black
as you disappear.
Fear the monster of a naked heart...
@Steven Francis Poems 2000

Death Trilogy

Intro to Suicide

Bombs rock the night
bruises haunt cemeteries,
but nothing is loud
like a ghost that wails
when the living
scream suicide...


' DEFF '

The End
of audiences and kings,
I weep
at your grainy funeral
heart heavy as a doorstop,
shouting to the Great Whoever
'This is wrong!'

Pinched
but you had to leave
and so you went,
went you did.
Gone now
like you had not been,
left me here
to rust and perish
like cold wild iron...


' ShinyBlindEye'

I'm bored,
this generation
has me beat.
A murder of crows
haunt the pub,
bats and wolves
ravage the blue sky.
The paper party
of silicone heroes
and vulgar poses
has me looking donward,
has me beat...

@Steven Francis Poetry 1998