by: Darren Francis
UK poet and musician Darren Francis’ poems explode with thoughts interrupted, images colliding, experience rendered into microns, reflections and wily juxtapositions, all processed through a diction unwilling to sit still and explain itself.
bird # 54
slow monkeys weep for
star in a styrofoam cup
spastic current
the dollar jail
shadows driving saffron
fortune steering teardrops
kings ride the midfield
dogs in careless light
fingers fatten alleyways
sumac ply a water drip
barbed wire swallows
glitter dims his babylon
stomachs hide
nature’s leave
streetlights wart
her whore birds
beasts drive the lips
lust spits halo spirit
silent gods fly by night
in this lustless trailer park
ahh bitte
christine
still strawberry me
i pick your flower
press my mouth
never had your
storm hand
lips on mine
lap finger
you reel the world
where matter
mama revolution
want cicada
i won’t hang
your song on me
i drive i’m driven
miss your slide in
soundless
when you come
soundless
when you leave
sandman
this universe
that creaks and stutters
spits matter
for no reason
now i know
why we are death
why gods are prone
to suicide
you no need worry
i’ve had words
pushed it up against a wall
showed its throat a blade
cosmos backed down
saw sense
agreed and we made a deal
nobody else has to die
west ramona spiders
as soon as i’m not an alcoholic
as soon as each star
doesn’t have a name for me
as soon as i can piss out
ten books a night
in my sleep
cut for my half-dozen
reason miss
nothing i’ve not told
spade in one hand
sheath of dead flowers
in the other
Darren Francis writes and makes music. He is the author of Spell, Skin, and – in collaboration with Simon Lewis – Jack Palmer & The Unspeakable Thing. He was a member of the legendary industrial band Cubanate in the mid-1990s and has recorded the spoken word albums God Thing and Future Ghosts, and six albums with the band Logos. He is currently working on another book, and another album.
