Alchemisland

When I write the routine’s sacred, must be naked save

For my chimp mask

Convinced that if I stick to that I’ll make it some day, alas

So far it hasn’t happened

The drugs enter me like the tip of a lance into the soft armpit flesh of a knight errant

Only after being scourged and necking litres of chipper vinegar was his divinity apparent

To his tormentors. Lividity had set in by the time the cadaver was returned to His parents

Querents would be wise to wear garments with plenty pockets, big silver stock

Cards paired like that, I have to be prepared for that

My stabbed fingertip fills the glass, back and forth passed

Scar-scored lips like clasps, fasten to the jewelled rim and lash it back

They open wide when they’re laughing, contorted and vilely red like the last time you fuck the victim’s dead corpse with the now-shrunken tomato still shoved inside

When you pull that beige stocking out of her, the end is swollen with liquid like a bag of wine

The damp, knotted back fur of licked-clean rats, I rewind their binding twine and return them to the tank 

I wait there like a bat then snatch them crossing the rafters

Psychic archaeology, my empathetic hand fastens to the ogham-scarred flank

Of an old stone one among a twenty rank, themselves a single plot

Of a network of earthen banks whose makers’ names we have lost

Psyche stocked with hidden knowledge

Just did it, like I was subscribed to the wisdom of Nike.