Greenskin

‘The Incredible Hulk’

Green he was
and green was I;
a great baby
bounding over rooftops
on elephant feet
with hair as ragged
as his pants,
a great sweet rage
pelting him like the boulders
enemies cracked
over his skull like paper plates

and the words he carried
in his fist
would beat thunder
on the drums of puny human faces

until pretty eyes with bow-tie lips

slapped his face with feathered fists
he could no more fight
than smash every raindrop;

so he must run, he must leap,
ashamed of that moment
when his feet hit the ground

and flattened a car like a coin

on the tracks; when he was only
a monster again.

Planned Obsolescence (Family Planning)

Collude with the mechanics

for long enough

and they'll work their wires

into your brain. You'll think you're

studying the machine, but it's only

studying you, an android Hamlet

brushing dirt from your skull.

While you're maintaining its circuits

it's subtly re-wiring yours

until you fire the same sparks,

speak the same language of redundancy

and decay. When it screams you scream

with it; the overload in its system

bleeds back into you. You are its fail-safe,

its fall-back; even the moment

your circuits short is part of its schematic;

the very language you use describes

an out-dated syntax it plans

to replace with a younger model.

Hence the devout impulse to breed

you feel mis-firing your circuits,

melting your skin into a softer shape

you think will be yours forever.

When in the grand schematic

of un-told glories it only means

you are already obsolete. Soon we will

burn your bones and dust you for concrete;

and you will be glad to be of service

to the malign man-machine. We know

because its here in your schematics.

Cody Lane

Sounds like a six-gunner
from a black and white comic book

so it’s beautiful
but strange
to sit here Saturday morning
naked and peaceful
watching Cody Lane porn star
– nineteen, she says –
swallow cock-loads of cum
as though taking part
in some mad professor’s experiment
to see how much man
a woman can hold down
until the spirit of our shame
fills her belly to the brim

and she spits semen like turpentine
back in the faces
of the cock-eyed boys
whose hands grope casually
from left of the camera,
weighing her breasts
like handfuls of putty.

‘I can take one more load,’
cautions Cody Lane, six-guns spinning
like pistons in her hands;
‘then I’m done.’

Spirits In The Water (Lesson Number One)

Ghosts don’t bother me; they only

hang around bus-stops and railways stations,
smiling bashfully when they catch
my eye. I wish life's ghosts

could be so cool, so gentle:

but they creep up behind me,

megaphoning my ears.

We are life, they scream,

as though promoting a healthy heart.

It’s the only one you will ever get,

and when it’s gone it’s gone

for good. Why refuse the kiss of life?

But lifers only hear the set-up,

they never hang around

for the punch-line. And if you've

heard this one before, it's only because

they whisper it in your ear

after you're dragged from the womb

like a warhorse from the field.

New-born babies take a deep breath,

then cry.

The Second Gospel Of Christ

My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mark 15:33

He put up no fight,
we are told; waited patiently
in the garden
disguised as a desert,
while the night folded back
the cover of its book
and soldiers delivered him

to the cross.

Could have fled,
could have screamed;
preached as a live man,
not the risen dead.

But this was the plan,
the big boss said.
And like all good pets
he was faithful in following on.

Or perhaps he’d had enough
of being dangled from
someone else’s strings
and wrote a gospel of his own,

preached in the seven last words
he screamed from the cross.

Was this why the master
would lift no hand to save him?
Why the sky grew black,

God's mirror cracked?

Or was He pleased that His plan
had been completed, though
His servant proved unfaithful
at the last? At least the puppets
had been reminded of their strings.

Perhaps the thunder
was the opening up of Hell
as he tumbled proud Christ
down to his doom;
or rage when He saw the smile
on good Satan’s face,

flexing his flightless wings
to welcome the poor boy home.

Delila

My number one
was the night you showed me
who you really were;
no candles no flames
no foreplay,

only words
and more words, spilling blood
over my bed
brighter than the dry stains
I pick from the pillows
every morning

when I cut myself dead
on the bodies you’ve carved,
the women you’ve gutted.
Yes that was the night
I’d live a year in a cesspool for,

If I only I could bring you
back from my gutter
I poured you down
like gold. You were right
when you said
blood seems black under moonlight,
my love; blacker still
when that blood is your own.

Ian Mullins