Where Have All The People Gone?

Where have all the people gone?
Life used to hold so much fun,
then the searing claw of dope came ripping
pulling everything undone.

We held the sunshine in our hands
but along came the needle and pill,
the tablets sung our eyes to sleep
the heroin made the kill.

No more laughter in the heart,
living life as a shambles of slaves.
Are the people who hated us happy
now that some of us rest in our graves?

Dark sweets were the cause, sugared stabs the ruin
nothing left of old times that shone.
How can there be anymore birthdays
when everyone seems to have gone?

High as kites which sail the sky
but the opium high turned to death,
sad to think not many reached forty
before they ran out of breath...

@Steven Francis poems 1995

Man Shaped Reflection

Me and I together in fantasy -
open the door, talk in Russian stereo.
Sing a louder song,
drown cut throat jibes.
My man,
my very own devil.

I am reflected glory,
poinant and fulfilled.
Blow away the crosses,
crimson stained and knotted -
harmony is tonight.

In the mirror
confusion stares back,
a thousand miles of
dignified bitterness.
But Love remains.

Tumbling dice map the future,
roll on cobbled roads.
Unshaved face
distorted and phantom.
Love bites me in the dark...

@Steven Francis poems 1994

2 Kittensanacat

Under a copper sun with see through tan
Emma puts words to music.
Donna hangs loose with lunchbox breasts,
Jayne is Jayne and quiet.

With silent figure and bloodied tongue
Emma sings to strangers,
Donna pecks with a cigarette beak,
Jayne is Jayne and quiet.

On a cardboard lake dried by summer
Emma draws fish in the mud,
Donna follows the razor children
Jayne is Jayne and quiet.

Dressed as Death in a flower skirt
Emma has a scalded attraction,
Donna scratches her name on walls
Jayne is Jayne and quiet.

In an opium forest playing hide and seek
Emma would grow with the poppy,
Donna would shine like a neon sign
Jayne would be Jayne and quiet...

@Steven Francis poems 1996

These Junkie Decks

Bewildered with graphic images made from cider.
Laugh at cats eyes inbetween failures
and wipe the drunks off the pavement.

Cabbage brain, junkie vein.
Delirious feeling , roll the child in carpet debris.
Willpower eaten on a plate.

Scratch away memories, dumb and blinded.
Heroin wolves gnawing to the bone.
Drill syringes into grovelling arms.

Midnight. Howl behind rotten teeth.
Suck the crying pulse dry.
Heaven and hell in a screaming rush.

Curiosity killed the man beast.
Draining needles of the chocolate wonderbliss.
Addicted to a foul king.

Magnifies elation. To the underworld.
Shield the eye from horror,
weep guilt into the arms of mother.

Father God save everything,
for music kicks the door.
The heartache of the thunder kids...

@Steven Francis poems 1995

Repeat To Fade

Tomorrow is a delicious Hope
but yesterday is caught in my throat.
It will not be swallowed,
like a stubborn bone
scratching doors in my mind.
What ferments the age so fine?
What is it I cannot chew
tying my tongue in knots?
I bite on threads of sanity,
I lick the lips that repeat the words.
An immortal tablet shines
behind my wishbone,
my grave
the hole I am in...

@Steven Francis poems 1996

Modern Scars

Stoned to death
death in milestones.
No answers
nothing,
no pleasure of sin
or craving.

Idle circus,
roving eye blind.
Heavy kisses full of
dust and spit.
Dying to meet
me and I.

Turn tuberculosis
as you see me
naked and scarred.
Hold your mothers spirit
and run,
run on fear...

@Steven Francis poems 1997

The H In Handsome

Like Muhamed Ali
I am God in a punch,
oasis
I found a binge in the desert.
Let's have a drink some day,
on Trumpton Square,
meet me there.
Maradonna
I am the hand of God...

@Steven Francis poems 1997