Venas Abiertas

Rosa y Manuel
Carlos y Miguel
3am
Rising
Sun just arriving
Coffee strong after grinding
Off to renew
The cleansed obsessions
Of capitalist possessions
Where damp, stench and dirt
Are removed by the magic of
Human labour

Dignity is sought
Organise, organise!
Trade union recognised
For those who transform
Our daily messes
Consumer excesses
Who oil the turnstiles, stamp the presses
Of the system’s inner core

Yet the beast cannot stand
To not beat down
Not completely command
The most downtrodden of them all
And Rosa y Manuel
Carlos y Miguel
Must remain shackled
The state she duly cackled
When the riot-gear police
Shoved them forcefully to the wall

And they told Rosa that her little one
Would never again see her mum
If she didn’t sign this scrap of paper
Which to her made no sense at all

And Miguel he signed away his life
When they handcuffed him, threatened his wife
He thought it might be best to return
Where his father was murdered before

So off they went to detention and planes
The system creaks under the weight and strain
At the lack of those who help it maintain
Sent back to the land of the open veins

Lost Facebook Status Updates

woke up this morning to find blood everywhere again and realises that she sometimes wishes she were a man

needs to find a job so that the new cocaine habit can be supported

feels guilty for thinking of her while shagging someone else

had a shit night, got sick all over the floor and woke up stinking of piss

just finished watching some brilliant porn

wishes this constipation would finally end

nearly killed himself last night

wishes everyone would just shut the fuck up

thinks that no one actually gets it and doesn’t care if that sounds pretentious

is slightly amused by feeling homicidal instead of suicidal for a change

cannot express his feelings adequately to the one he claims to love

got blinding drunk and mauled fish and chips on the bed before passing out

despises this atrocious weather but has insincere conversations about it anyway

wishes she didn’t have to pretend to be in love

thinks that nobody really gives a fuck about him and is probably right

thinks she actually is a fat, ugly bitch who gets by on intellect

would rather get drunk, stoned and high than talk about politics – contrary to what most people think

thinks he might actually be gay but isn’t willing to seriously consider it

just spent the last hour looking at photos of her on Facebook again, imagining a non-existent future

writes these updates to create an image of himself that he begins to believe is real even though he knows it couldn’t be further from the truth

Love Music Hate Homophobia*

You rob me
My country
Tell me I cannot share
The richness of humanity
My lovers
The dreamers
The others
Who have HIV

My adopted land
Equality at hand
Oh really?
Those dying
Screaming for
Scarlet enhancement
Denied this reprieve

QUEERS!
FAGS!
PERVERTS!

Not part of humanity
No blood – no blood
Fuck that insanity

And while we’re at it
You can shove your
False equality
Which pretends at
Fair policy
Can we have some toilets
That are
G
N
T?

You see
This system opresses
Every part of me
Telling me I can’t be
Free
Telling me I can’t
Just fucking be me
Be me
Be you
And that’s what
We’re here to do

To subvert heteronormativity
To try and see what others
Cannot see
To align with the opressed
Whoever they may be

To be proud as fuck
To be
L
G
B
T

*Performed at the Love Music Hate Homophobia event at the annual NUS LGBT conference in Nottingham, UK

Two

The two
Now nothing
Now nothing at all
But the two holes left
The two voids of discretion
Two of you
Two naked bodies in the morning light
The two
The multitudes that you encompassed
You
You too
Me and my two tears
My two torn holes of brokenness
Yesterday
Always yesterday
Mine
My service
My love
No
Say no to ownership
You two
You two beautiful stupid cunts
Two and two is four
Four gorgeous naked bodies
In the moonlight
Fucking
Drinking
Sucking
You four and no more
No more room for me
No more room for one
Odd number
Just an odd one
Fucking
Mentally
You two
You two too
As they fuck you
You stupid beautiful cunts
Fuck you

The Core

The dreamy Indian coastline
The guts of a Soho dive
A drunken quote from Brendan
That it’s better to be alive
A hundred thousand tales
Of gods and love and man
A constant recognition
That it cycles all over again
An optimistic nihilist
If ever there were such a thing
A romantic with wit and wisdom
Your direction ever altering
Timeless stories and interactions
Flow from this brilliant mind
Ozymandias, Agamemnon, Ariadne
We too are lost in time
Of the real are you and I my friend
Experiencing humanity’s muck and grime
Of sweat and blood and stench and lust
Making us human all the more
For one who has “nothing to offer”
You have given me the core –
The richness of existence

Vortex

Down always down
Sucked again through the spiral
What the fuck was I thinking?
What the fuck am I doing?
Love and loathe the taste of you
Which lingers after days
Of drunken, musty depths
You started falling to where
I could no longer catch you
Only hold on tightly and plummet alongside
The reverse pinnacle
Of my decline
Matching yours
Ever present
An addict I am
Longing for another
Alcohol induced touch
The shell of an idea
Which was lacking lustre
Months before this
Icy consummation
Whose meaning was given
By a phantasmagoria
Projecting ephemera
From yours truly baby
Words imbued with signs
No longer
Just syllables, soundings of your mouth
Which moved rhythmically with mine
But for yourself alone
The uselessness of rebellious negation
Which lacks ability for further creation
Reveals the darkest of vortex centres
I bow reverentially to you
My beloved Dionysus

Fine

Piazza San Marco
Overwhelmed
As Venezia sheds
Her mother load
“In remembrance of things past”
You said
In French
So like you
Things which passed and passed
Circulating hurt and pain
Degradation a final goodbye
You tried to hold my hand
In early morning light but I
Recoiled
Not because, oh not because
I didn’t want you to
Hold me, hold on forever more
But to protect this heart of mine
From the inevitable return
Of indifference
A heart which is tired, broken and sore
So let it go
Let it go
Washed out with receding waters
Which make their way
To the stinking still canals
Of loneliness
But which are calm, sweet calm
None the less

Infinity

They’re coming for me boys
This tightrope I’ve been walking
Balancing on my knees
The knife of dare devilry
Poised to make the cut
Clenched between my teeth as they
Chatter in the cold
Hoping
There’s a net below
But no longer caring
If I fall to infinity
They’re coming…

Nomad, Seeker, Wanderer

Bring me oral traditions
Bring me clay and bits of stone
Bring me tales and your mad stories
Which on your lips forever roam

Fuck a gorgeous woman
Wrestle cobras to the ground
Scare big cats with a fiery tongue
Until that bit of you is found

That smothers all despair
That finally fills the hole
That recalls the glory of joy
Satisfying your thirsty soul

Care not for past sorrows
They are naught but yesterday
Let sun redeem the glint of life
You thought was gone away

If in Indian heat you ponder
When day’s journey is at an end
Worry not for anything here
Just return to us whole again friend

Lesson of the Butterfly

Rough and coarse
The insects
Which kicked and squirmed
Inside a youthful clenched fist
It was all those years ago I learned
That you cannot hold a butterfly

For its wings are too soft
Its freedom too grand
For the oily substance
From the human hand
Its rapid movements too
Imprecise
No, you cannot hold a butterfly

I once did try
Inspired by its complex beauty
To keep it for my own
In bell jar on dusty desktop
Oh how it withered and died
It was then I understood
That you cannot hold a butterfly

Now I watch the garden
As the creature darts in and out
Its graceful movements a joy to behold
In its pure observance a forgetting of
All that is dead, decrepit and old
Oh see how, see how it enlivens the very sky!
How time stands suspended on its wings!
Yet it goes, it goes, it goes
I am left here but to await its return
Once again I am taught and this time truly learn
That you cannot hold a butterfly