Brian Purcell #17 Little Testament

 Little Testament

Held in the glare of the fridge by the temple

the tsunamis of mother’s milk, of love like breaths

the vagabonds of life’s demure wave

hedonistic branches of history’s forgotten timber where notes

hide in branches and monkeys cling to palm leaves as they

simper and submerge

but divine sight goes blind and the devils are interred

with breasts that jiggle fantastic coloured lights

while the cat licks itself away, at least from normal sight

drag the chain from my heart as it was in Jesus

hobble the hosannas while they take me down a peg

and drag onto porcupines of artistry and design

that worships slow obesity, the exalted rising

onto two feet, two legs, a timorous response

but the naked man knows he has been crucified

by all the kindness shown to him in a multitude of ways

he sings to the heavens of how happy he is

to be naked and still standing in a land of blasted twigs

and drowned monkeys slumber in their sodden dreams

encased in silver rockets, or tin if you please

that children have blown earthward in their Guy Fawkes reveries

losing limbs, teeth that smirk like gods in tasteless wigs

raffles without prizes, meat trays without claimants,

gods without peoples, days without a gig

insuperable disguises where life’s bricked up

in songs of beggars, the questions they ask you

for which there are no answers, from which there is no rescue

but sadly the days cross their legs like quixotic priestesses

guarding sacred relics from the abattoirs of love.

Passing arrow blades into the shins they access

where priests blow the bubbles of the Jordan’s mighty flow

and folders of the follies of Wall Street coalesce

across five hundred slithering tongues

of teenage burghers from the banks of the insane

hardened heart of Serevu, the Grand Central pain

wrapping the days in greasy burger wrapping

Condoleezza, Condoleezza,

Selling the tarts of gas stations

of greyhounds’ hind legs

Selling the photos of llamas, of teenage beer kegs

dregs sucked by the aged, living in a vomitous trench

cross-hatched computer chickens dawning without words

in worlds without sounds of voices, of countries without covers

vices without sties in which we can slumber

too slow for the brains of electronic mistresses

wanting to voyage in spaceship cummerbunds

and aweful liveries of the servants’ class

drag we we must the cart of human kindness

containing the cask of human mindlessness

bound for the train to India and Bahrain

super power to sprain and certainly endure

harder than Carthage which I burnt to the ground

lest I uncover in the golden cart of pain

your open mind freezing in a silent summer rain

and carving up the chicken of unsupported wealth

I hunger for a reason to give up my stealth

the lord of all the fire ants, to his commission I endorse

the steed of Baptist fire, the honour and the wealth

I always resist with stockings pushed on my lovely oval head

which I sewed without looking in my father’s garden shed

indestructible though very often burnt to the ground

and turning up in New York or another part of town

The pattern of my slumbers is another foolish thing

I kissed the sun’s cold diamond before fashioning a ring

in which I fought for ages seven suns and seven moons

and created what I know was the sum of all my tunes

and buried so with Caesar’s Antarctic hidden store

I dreamed of the Atlantic until I could not ignore

the ugliness of my mission which is never to restore

the skulls of all my victims to the necks I can adore

or turn into a vice squad where the bureaucrats are frozen

in frames of lives guarded by the others they have chosen

to live into the age where terror cannot rule

to live within the Argus overrun by holy fools

and threads of life unwinding from a very holy spool

in which the dreams are trucked by the actor and the fools

walking tawdry tightropes fat but as if slender

walking tawdry tightropes one time tough and one time tender

walking in the gardens of the overreaching days

with one hand in a straight man’s, one hand in a gay’s

and one hand holding on to the unremarking days

and how it is so sweet to live out your young life

with terrapins and Caesars for your brother and your wife

holy holy river full of puddles and of shags

holy holy fountain where you shiver in your rags

waiting for the prince to come in silence and in hate

waiting to uncook the fish, to unhook the bait

waiting to uneat the meat, to scarper all your days

waiting to unwork the shift, to give back all the pays

so the gift you gave to jesus can be given back to you

so the world can be unmade and chaos then ensue

where you can choose your birth or not or what to understand

        when holy fish ignite the poor to dream upon this land