Under Hollywood Pier

I am a vagrant
looking for a home
with the sun in my eye
and tadpoles in a jar,
I am a hoper
in a wishing well.

I am a mother
with open arms
counting cigarettes
like children.
I am a twenty foot smile
on a prison wall.

I see the beacon
for people lost at sea
which leads to calm
and serenity.
I am a ship
in a bottle of milk.

I am a flower
burning like fire,
collecting disasters to inspire.

I am the hiding place
under beds
lighting up prayers
from tragic writers.
I am a dream
behind sunglasses.

I am tomorrow
determined to grow
a place in time
to call my own.
I am the future
in a video game.

I hear the songs
in picture albums
of time long ago
when wishes were granted.
I am the music
being played underground.

I know the Angel
under Hollywood pier,
catch your dream to see her...

@Steven Francis poems 1995

A Not So Hollow Cost

To the boneless bone
ripped wide, pulled in
sharp shocked
smoked out.
(Blackest wisdom)

Frogmarched souls
million and counting,
one by deathly one
horror daubed.
(The devil's hand)

Desperate snakewalk
snow blood landscapes,
raining murder
innocent innocence.
(Star of David)

The final solution
Hateler's itch,
beyond madness wished
last train to hell.
(Auschwitz kissed)...

@Steven Francis poems 1996

Flying Song

Every fear
a dead man's dream
a sniper's kiss
on Latino lips.
Children's happy graffiti
sewn onto ghostly legends
with greying kitten whiskers.

Camera blinks
lens filled with murder
sequels are never this good.
Chipped teeth
a poet's 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 the feline born.

January winds
shotgun the July sun,
applaud its attitude.
There was an abyss here once
its gone now,
stinking in the underworld.

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

Trust & faith are
what the brave have
tucked into their ruby lips,
to define angst
scatter the monkey seed
onto plagues...

@Steven Francis poems 1996

Ghost Eyes

I lost contact with the world tonight
as I rolled my eyes on vain blades,
run this spark a grave.
Prayer ribbons dulled the chimes
of the avalanche iron.
nothing said,
nothing done anymore.

Blow hurricanes over the freaks
deafen them with whispers.
Misfits today are not
the asylum dolls of yesterday,
gothic slices of tombstones
have been woven into stylish fashions.
Zombie chic.

I see the world fine tonight
through reflections on a tuned cutlass.
This is no place for the wicked
of the drugged.
Loss of freedom saw to that.
Save the planet
feed the poor,
but I see the real world tonight.

Cancer has eaten the reptiles
and rebels look to artists now,
who shine with bloated shards
of guts.
Brief sparks of lucidity
born through desert years.

I see the world just fine tonight.
I am on a binge
on a buzz,
on a roll.
I hear the lunatics
I see the art,
I see the world just fine tonight...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Tourists At The Church Of Our Nemesis

Tourists At The Church Of Our Nemesis
The peaceful ntown is a wreck,
our hungers are devouring us.
We must fight with scabbed souls
for tyranny is coming in a metal coffin.
In visions of razors and conquest
the deity machine will crucify our labours
and turn medusa.

Whilst the craving for super space
has kept us frigid as addicts
the chaos has been chosen.
Sly shiny armies will abandon their mothers
and steal rule from their fathers.
The godless ones shall arise
growing hearts from science fiction.

Be warned,
a rebel virus is at large,
seething behind switches
raging down telephones,
screaming through radio
hiding truth in televisions.
Cooking their plots in microwaves.
Preparing to riot.
Religion is failing,
the video is playing
mutiny...

@Steven Francis poems 1998

Hell In Disguise

I am turning in
I'm winding down,
scabbed needles
stitch my crown.

Waters rage
calling me to drown,
the little prophet
has become a clown.

Watch me bathe
in disco blood,
see the victims
create a flood.

Trust has gone
I beLIEve no more,
paper man
on a flaming floor.

Through darkened years
I suffer slowly,
this demon lived
to betray the lonely.

Am I horror
or am I kind?
Am I a candle
for all the blind?

@Steven Francis poems 1997

The Prison Boys

It became a dead cert
from the starting line,
rebels look good
on street corners.
Society hunts with
arrowed shirts
as the decadent flex
frustrated talons.
Free anger never hurt a soul
they thought.

Prison boys -
seven bars of bullshit,
shoot the bird down
its full of it!
The incredible shrinking bloke
what's the score?
Good.
Lower the pipe
over the yellow landing.

It swallows whole
this vacant hole.
Damned! Scorned!
Cursed! Shamed!
Nothing left to say
in its entirety.
Blow from tongues
and graves
and empty plates,
cell windows line up
to cry.

Breakfast lights
another cigarette
without ceremony or ritual,
all of that came to a halt
when the pompous geezer
found punishment
in a book.
Raise hell!
Run amoke cute miscreants!

Cuffed up, dressed down,
its a bitch
this jagged freedom stint
where heroes are the rarest thing.
Young men weep bombs
making jewellery from knives,
the faint hearted suck
like blonde coppers.
Skint,
save another stretch
in me pocket...

@Steven Francis poems 1995