Poetry
Alan Peart

and then the rain of colourless fire
on the children dancing all night in warehouses
skin greasy like candles, dark wicks of hair,
chewing on rat poison, speaking in silent tongues
blind in the embrace of the mother heartbeat

in the living rooms of strange houses, black paper
holding the creeping dawn from the windows
sweat streaking the walls, bodies swaying
like fronds of seaweed, sleeping heads on stalks
drifting forgetfully down the dry ice river

when you’re coming up, do you like to talk?
or to hug, dance, fuck, sing, laugh, cry—
to make a crucifix of yourself against the sun
something to hold back demons and daylight,
to exchange a year, three years of life just for tonight

magnesium babies burning karma, like sadhus
in their years of penance, palms pierced
by their own fingernails, limbs withered,
eyes bright, gaze unmeetable, bodies twisting
like saplings in a slow flame, the ecstasy kids

rubbing each others cheeks and bellies
chewing spearmint and smoking menthol
crushed and burnt and moulded into each other
this is how they learned to link hands
across their void, and they don’t care how it ends

“I am a 28-year old writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction currently living in Leeds, England. My poetry has been published in The Trinity Poetry Broadsheet and The Stinging Fly, both publications based in Dublin, Ireland, where I lived until recently. I am also co-editor of dreamvirus, an e-zine for poetry, prose and artwork.” E-mail: alan[at]dreamvirus.com.