Wednesday 23 May 2012




Warped Canvas

El Toro, grotesque beauty,
so easily erased to mollify fallacious bloodlust.
Francis Bacon, hedonistic impressionist,
painted good-looking men;
matadorial studies of male on male action
transferred to the sordid dousing of your innocent flame.

Ceremonial peacock, zoning on his prey,
curious, post-pubescent in his hip-thrusting ritual.
His tortured plaything, heaving, almost spent,
unaware of the impending onslaught strutting two feet away,
pausing, awaiting that sadistic nod from sweaty Mammon.

Nero, you never went away.

El Toro, blazing heart, they wait to see you
pierced with their slender, penile rapier.
Their special-bred boy.

What if you refuse? 
Deny them their theatre?
Turn their blood-smeared table over?

Be sure. 
Be thorough. 
Use that savage heart they would deflate of its burning glory.
Use your virgin impaler, your ivory phallus.
Let them balk to taste the untainted side of
Bacon’s warped canvas.

Destroy the sabre-clad man-child
and live to tell your tale.
El Toro, innocent beauty, live…
for us.

Tuesday 1 May 2012




An Observation On The Day Of A Christening

Crow, on your bough,
cast your knowing eye
through my morning window.
White smoke rising in the valley
merges with the hungry cries
of babies with no choice.
Will sacred oils ease the pain
of life, or has the crow’s
shadow already decided where
Sligo’s early mist will
carry your message to the world?