JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Blood
don’t know where blood is coming from
it stains, running from mouth, from eyes
from gaping chest where heart ought to be
white linen humiliated and red
Stop the blood!

 

Cut
a scalpel descends, slicing layers
of dermis down to secrets inside
alien thoughts ooze walnut blood
green reptilian blood, salt blood
congealing skinned hanging
from the feet on a hook

 

Running
backwards in time, uphill, blood reverses
direction sucks itself into itself – white
with final slurp into chest where
heart used to beat

 

Snap
projector whirrs
numbers flash gray on white
from 8 to 0

 

White room
white walls, white floors, white furniture

two children play with white toys

all floating in free fall
they play seriously building castles

with fluffy white magnets

talk quietly in white

 

Gray moonscape

gray rocks, gray craters

gray hills against curved black horizon

sun rising like a knife pouring ingot gold

into racing shadow, four wheels dig,

arms bolted metal frames, dig patiently

convert heat to gold and dig on

 

Green

essential life from light, from air

from plankton, from lichen, from mollusks

from amphibian creatures, from green crawling

in green leaves, green insects, green trembling
in shadows, green caterpillars, prehistoric
concertina buses advertising rows of black spots

 

Walnut walls

walnut recliners, cushioned sofas crinkled
brocaded noblemen and flowered ladies
leaning on parasols, listen to baroque quartet

fingered strings brown fragments plucked

out of air golden syrup through which sun escapes

 

Salt

everywhere, in caves, in pits, on rocks

in dried up seas, glinting salt in abandoned

centuries, workings corroding down shafts

rails broken, down into rock, below all

salt on thick tongue, choking

 

Now

blood stops

children curl up to sleep

metal arms freeze into night

green sinks to sea floor darkening

bows halt above strings, disintegrate

salt covers all

blood rusts