John W. Sexton

 Vhuck9

and flavoured to deter rats ...

live forever

as a bowl of sludge

a guitar note brands

a weal in thought ... mangling worms

push through

she secures the fog

with a golden cord ... daylight

is held from the king

barking ...

Laika makes entry 

in the earthless mind

Captain Kronk descends 

the soft grotto ... an

exhalation of become

a twist of his magic

pepper-mill

her lips get hot

a glass door clinks shut

the beekeeper arranges

his beard of bees

her comb grits its teeth ...

Ophelia's knotted hairs

keep their grip on land

666 locust wings

to make that wedding veil

... the groom wore sores

maggot vixens

of Vhuck9 …

men for breakfast

John W. Sexton is the author of four previous poetry collections, the most recent being Vortex (Doghouse, 2005) and Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009). His fifth collection, The Offspring of the Moon, is due from Salmon Poetry in spring 2013. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

John W. Sexton

The Unanswered

wasps’ papier-mâché

puppet of god ... wasps

is the sound of wasps

meadow shattercups

turn blue as men tread, blue ...

men when they turn, turn blue

the clay

in her teeth ... a ghost haunts

the unanswered mail

A Slow Burn

selvedge

of the reamtime ... a sprouting

of thistle-cherub

sluggish stars

smoulder their eternities ...

Lucifer a slow burn

eternal tunnels

through the undead emperor ...

his rat familiar

Mercury Girls

crisp with autumn ...

the leaf dirigible

crackles through the clouds

immolate

in the sanctity engine ... nuns

bleed light for the star run

some like it hot ...

the mercury girls

rise above us

Moist Song

bubonic-skinned ...

all they knew of beauty

was themselves

moist song of

vulva birds

sunlight through the gap

a grey dray-horse

its shadow dim ... the End

of Dull Days deadens

 

John W. Sexton is the author of four previous poetry collections, the most recent being Vortex (Doghouse, 2005) and Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009). His fifth collection, The Offspring of the Moon, is due from Salmon Poetry in spring 2013. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

John W. Sexton

High Heaven

subterranean oceans ...

Martian sea-folk

followed the soak indoors

starlightdrive

the universe

our engine

sheen of moonlight

on her hair ...

distances collapse

sedge skirts the menhir

under rising Venus ...

the mind contains space

Coyote swaps the moon

for a turd ... the sky stinks

to high heaven

beneath the floor

the mouth-mouse

... our house floats on Sheol 

The Negative Fog

flash-frozen mermaids …

prices slashed

in the suffermarket aisles

hangar 666

the hearts idling

in a billion, billion flies

the hedge begets …

cheeping

of sparrow angels

the here of there …

distance passes

through the spaceleech

‘twould twist your tongue

three micecubes chill

old Vlad’s vodka

electric bayou …

the mist guitar

of Johnny C. Through

scales of light the lamps

of the deep … by the pinch

of her tail he follows

frozen match-flames …

in the negative fog our

thoughts become brittle

Finite Frontier

space just

a puzzle-box

now it opens up

magmacopter

cools to pumice ... a pilot too abstract

to comprehend

cherry blossom

shatters the heart ... no astral ribbons

tether us

Neolithic

cup and ring marks ...

stone engine ready

crew of

the modified protozoa ...

blood-space the finite frontier

slimy sapiens ...

from their glass vialships

the vladpoles hither

wyverns of hollow Mercury ...

a pea-sized sun

gives never-night


John W. Sexton is the author of four previous poetry collections, the most recent being Vortex (Doghouse, 2005) and Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009). His fifth collection, The Offspring of the Moon, is due from Salmon Poetry in spring 2013. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.