Fox Baby
(inspired by the artwork of Lucie Smailes)

But nobody talks about
What it felt like for me
Just an ordinary farm girl
Minding her own business
Tending to chickens
Suddenly feeling sick in the mornings
Feeding my donkey
With a distended belly
I don’t remember anything
No shower of gold
Came raining down
Pouring heaven between my thighs
There was no beast, no Minotaur
No soldier or prince’s lies
It must have happened as I slept
It, him, them, whoever
Snake-like, uninvited
Inside me it crept
And suddenly I was with child
And mother was screaming at me
Then the frantic plea to lie
Why couldn’t I just hide?
Or make it die
“Mary, now listen. Say it was God
Say it came from the sky”
I heard my donkey bray
Heard my chickens fall silent
The rats turned to stars in the backyard
I felt the weight of the world
Turning to stone in my womb
Nobody ever mentioned rape
Or that strange guy calling himself Judas
Hanging around outside our house
The whole of Nazareth heralding angels, clueless
Then came the language of kings and prophets
But I listened to my mum
Choked back the bile of the world’s denial
And had the wretched thing
The donkey watched from the manger
The chickens too
The stars turned back into stable rats
And despite the uproar
I still felt like a virgin whore
I took it out, pushed it around in a children’s pram
Upheld my end of the silly scam
And when they all saw a saviour
And brought it strange gifts
I just saw the raw face of female cunning
Sleek and sly
An ugly
Furry
Smoking lie
That thing in my pram
That fell from the heavenly sky.

 

Joseph

Nobody talks about
What it was like for me
Lying next to her every night
Swimming in the milk and sweat of her dreams
Invisible angels fighting with holy ghosts
A hundred horny heavenly hosts
Or maybe it wasn’t like that
She was always a fantasist
Concocting fairy tales about who she was
Innocent escapism from a living prison
She didn’t want to marry me
Wouldn’t let me touch her
So we’d sleep together night after night
Skin close, nerve endings on edge
Desire castrated in the burning bed
I know she was told to tell the lie
Told to say it fell from the heavenly sky
But what does that make me?
A man eclipsed by history
Son-less, loveless, no sermons, songs or poetry
While the ginger creep Judas
Slips off the tongue
Of every wild child and virgin nun
Mary, her face carved into chapel, church and window
A holy mouth where the world’s prayers go
But nobody thinks or talks about me
Doomed to a life of silent blasphemy
The pointless hang-around guy
Party to a lie, void of destiny.

 

 

‘Vanitas Still Life’ by Philippe de Champaigne

Call it indignant vanity
painting the madness
trapped inside the skull
an oil on canvas
theatre piece
testimony to the honey
of wasted time
three objects on an alter
tulip, skull, hour-glass
a narcissism parade
an empty sermon
wise perversion
all three pointing south
intending to be a looking-glass
tulips bold, truths old
pouring out your mouth.

 

 

Bleeding Roses
(Inspired by Dali’s ‘The Bleeding Roses’ 1930)

This is what you see
when you look at me
flawless female symmetry
girl, on a canvas of flesh and blood
abstract lines carved, cut up
brazen male butchery
am I like all the others?
nameless, warm, compliant
do I feel the same
as all your faceless lovers
a bit bloody, stale
bits of inside gone wrong
for I can see you hovering
spying on me from the dark
as you tie me
metaphorically
to a shiny metal cross
feet hacked off, unable to run
looking toward the heavens
with wet flowers and all my pleasures
softly dripping south
I ask you, do I taste the same as them?
when you kiss the bleeding roses
of my woman’s mouth.

 

 

With Bird in Hand
(inspired by ‘Study for a Dream about Hans Bellmer’ (2007) by James Michael Starr)

Call it a broken song
dreams interrupted
limbs held together with wire and glue
a meaning merely gone wrong
call it the remains of what’s not there
too ripe for air
too heavy for sky
statues made of torso
harbouring a lie
corrosion of the comfortable
call it half a doll
with bird in hand
wishing it were her
things missing, lost
things you can’t understand
dismemberment of certain parts
a grubby soul, dark intention
fractured porcelain heart
I’ll call it what I want
fear, parody, symbolic narcissism
and how I manage, we all do
in acts of humiliation
with bird in hand, with swollen skin
to avoid the disfigurement
and darkness within.