Apocalypse when
Hard to say, Marty took a hearty
Francis bored, cajoling exotic birds for cutting room rinds.
No pyrotechnics when the president comes
Manilla envelopes boxed book depository, lead spread lifeshedder the cranial suppository acquainted with a smack brain matter and tarmac
That’s how we do when the president comes.
Heard mooing the apocalypse cow, hymning its eluding the priest’s knife-gouge
Francis snorts more powder than the boarding school washing machine
They drift down the dark river of the shaded self, Martin Sheen is rarely seen
Comes when he can, his brother stands in, he ain’t heavy, pa
Reading books in the jungle, the book of the jungle no Ka
Bungling budgets on bridge collapses and redone chopper sweeps
Burning away trees like threat of dutch elm disease
Ill at ease the crew like Alexander’s men loyal each
Happier to be a puzzle piece than hold muzzled peace
Life should see the flesh breached, shameful sight an unplucked peach.
Francis harboured guilt about dodging his draft, his shite eyesight
Nothing to do with his family wealth, his collar shining white
He craved a war he couldn’t win, he built one to relieve his sin
Like a poem with the poet’s secrets, he teased each frame with hindrance
Struggle silver screened, Martin Sheen’s unlacing like a dream
Oscars waved like Liberty torches, strobing wall of paps, apertures tsking like cicadas.
It’s all coming soon he promised them the promised land, they took food from his hand
Unbitten, with much bidding the film crew followed his madman’s missives
The King’s menagerie must be stocked with rare cryptids, this shot missing it
Missing links he demanded, shots missing links in sequence like surreal
Since then they say he’s great and a genius but then they call him mad hedonist
Dreamer far from realness, a real test for moguls to recoup, they openly weep at screen tests
Francis is obsessed, people contract his dreams through contract, he extracts wealth by contract
Hard over fist the fistfuls of dirty dollars build the soon-boomed bridge and wooden village
Occasionally, the real rebellion must be suppressed and government forces take back their helis; Francis calls it pillage.
They spend a whole day filming a bombing sequence, out like Talos’ blood the napalm spillage
Someone donned a lenscap and forgot to scrap it, whole shot is cabbaged, thousands in damage
Francis saint like his namesake never challenges it, understands such unmanageables arise, paints it budgetly as intangible.
Tome of a script, Nam’s codex like nan’s cookbook, Coppola adds to it, his cup of rum refilling
Demands a swimming tiger, in the lush every shooter is a sniper
Every twig a trained barrel, every trail that’s wide narrows as if the whole thing is a funnel
Beneath the ground the ratline tunnels rival Malta for spadework, ho chi’s hobbits run the runnel
Rabbits warriors of the warren, they drag their fallen
What evidence of conflict they do not clear the jungle sweeps away
The weight of the gear, the tang of fear
Massive crowds and massive clouds of shrooming smoke, massive glasses of something like stout made from rice, nice enough
Holes in the ground lined with wit-sharp spears, deranged GIs wearing necklaces of ears
Rumours of demon goggles and rock throwing apes, of gigantic spiders and the innermosts they traipse
Wrong’uns making bongs of guns while vietcong throng the cities razed and raped
Rice paddies turned like Somme soil, fed with death, passing choppers raining lead
Prisoners led in chains to dismal middens, tortured like sadist’s kittens, half drowned and stretched
Insults into flesh knife etched, knife edges familiar as lover’s hands to scoured skin
Five times we’ve played Russian Roulette, one thinks, they must be letting me win.
Alchemisland 
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