Christopher Barnes

Puppeteer’s Croon

 

Cliqued in the finesse

Of bestowing decrees, I swallow it

Wanting gripe.

Soaked up by long-in-tooth conventions,

Machinations smart-arsing the no-accounts.

 

Righto, you structure by hush-hushes,

Floodlight defects.

Kick off the coming bloodshed.

You made trap-doors alright;

In the sewer try bobbing along.

 

Disorganising Revolution

 

Inconsiderate – your Simian good looks,

Strew in knock-kneed rain.  Convictions

Of ‘tactics’ gist –

Someone’s tackling to string-pull

The Schism.

 

War is a gargled-earth malodour.

Muffled drum.  The matter of daring,

A bare anthropological index.

 

The New Politics Are Dead

Right path whores

With pit-a-pat scowls

Had flesh that made thunder certain.

Sprung, seven senses – they’ll tangle you

In the eye.

 

We’re divided from gallows.

Unreplenished of possessions.

Smuggled banners jolt.

Dishevelled see-saw resistance

Death rattles treading damp steps

Set forward by the living.

 

Christopher Barnes' first collection LOVEBITES is published by Chanticleer.  He is a participant writer for http://www.stemistry.com/ and reads at Poetry Scotland's Callendar Poetry Weekends.  He also has art criticism published in Peel and Combustus magazines.