Thumbs Down
A last debt’s also on the executioner’s skin.
The imprisoned stretch of paralyzed snapshot,
This would contort an abominable Xmas card.
Your chronic refuge,
Fooled by this Persil-white summoner.
Arteries are a burn, a whack.
No eyes startle the exposure time,
Denied is a predisposition to glimpse.
Watching itself.
Aftershocks
The presumption is – knockout’s crisis
Is a crunch in a second. There’s tell-aparts
From mug shot to passing time.
Specters undertake to materialize.
The pew of conviction’s wired up
To the repugnance of The City.
This is, frankly, “hasta la vista!”
Brainer
This blanched anteroom’s irksome,
A shrine to Edison ’s trails
With cats and dogs.
Squishy seals, a queasy camera-lens.
Crabbedness of scalding muscle.
Water-salt that sopped electrodes
Is dust. You have passed into a frame.
The body streams
As life empties.
Christopher Barnes
Christopher Barnes lives and writes in Newcastle where he dresses loud and walks his dog.
