from Risk Assessment


LINES DRAWN

Lines drawn in dirt in finger dust deposits
licking the pads of letters letting the language in
the body and its stories of that old salty tongue
of red-ribboned debt genuine real death

brief instants of darkness even fingers guiding
hard investments kill Liberty information gridlock
economy with a hangover worn like coins in a
combinatory orgy of finger units ready salted digits

rollover weeks of lying pointing to the point
of mechanical excess wearied overfed disorder
blankly beautiful and oiled keys violate quantum ravishings
pitted into hard rubber boiled blood and coiled steel

if you were mittened in your own candy-floss flesh
if you could hide your pink-sugar-coloured bruises
if you would unroll the corporeal roller impressions
ifs and buts and violence must pass as company here




SWALLOWED BY MIST

Swallowed by mist dung barge resigned moments mind fogged
invisible moorhen gull swan duck first person in paradise
funerals bejewel the city's ring endless orbital car crash
third person narrative deceased obituaries glittering with

brisk top and tails magpies crows penguins and vultures
thoroughly distracted and dismayed chatter and laughter lines
clawed by each performer each and every coffin objectified
decontextualised in the ground costs the earth

you stuff your mouth with and it's the truth, innit?
I mean, there's nuffink left slipping the thread holds nothin'
but nothing in its eye fiery iris nothing but
owl twist backward stare slicing the slip-knot

abstract thought and clouds and trees drop away
leaving suites of gesture to suit your re-embowelment
bleached bird skull and feathers by the side of the road
time's hopscotch rumours misted by swallows




TANGLED DENIALS

Tangled denials of context Test history's pulse
its astonished archive screens around the image
protect the innocent record a reflex below the throat
waiting on its whisper for the buggers to croak

Teenage derision of content This odyssey's a sleep walk
to the erasure of luv a travelogue into desire
a contortionist's wet dream sucks pleasure from the guilty
out between passions Toothpaste turbulence veers

Toward epiphanic endings This is the story
that didn't get squeezed that didn't hold up
that doesn't sing sweetly but you can't blurt out
and blot out the lovers context would be broke

Today I want nothing more than to remain silent
Tomorrow I want something more than silent remains
will want nothing less than margins scribbling themselves in
history told in less than ten and a half chapters




XYLONITE

Xylonite split with a crackle a muffled humming through flesh
his tongue tastes her senses sharpened and thrilled
over-ripe fruit scar tissue wrenched from its root
rubs its rubber glans over barbed wire and fence post

skinny limbs and scarlet thorns scratching her gooseflesh back
tickling his lamb-tongue mint sauce tart on tongue
spiced-up memories and plans desire curls in him
ready like a tiger stripes and teeth and smiles

ready to cut you up the hireling flexes his tool
licensed fingers and pierced tongue well hard ordinand
shepherd of the flock flicks the skins inside out
their blows and suckings filmed private post-watershed viewing

at his first burst she moans wet with his mission
second time round he whimpers soft as raw dough
the small mounds of flesh that spill over
look forward to sweated time and damaged goods




YESTERDAY I READ

Yesterday I read the End found out who done what
self-scrutiny and self-interrogation painter turns in upon himself
turns to no applause no ideas and big gestures
desires the company of moths loathes the easel with ease

bronze cast upon the day metal fatigue burnt hands
polished chrome static summer descends burnished from threat
I'm dazzled by brilliant distances seduced by intimate close-ups
fond brushstroke critical hindsight sun 'streaming' into my studio

mind unwinds each fragment scatters them in new orbits
it's the way things work its outward peering light
minds the sky's blank veil see the widows in paradise
in the windows of paradise wringing hot and human hands

remembered light brings death to the self-absorbed
lyric captures a rumble in the guts of tomorrow
knowing who done what tells us nothing new
it's like book art without the book without the art


© Rupert Loydell & Robert Sheppard