Worth is the name of the fiend that stalks me,
lingering gaily in the shadows
beyond irreproachability,
where Calamity and Caprice play
erratic roulette, jacket lapels the colour
of throttling rage. The always-losers wade through sullied
torment, attempt to affect once more,
just once again, that sickly transient glow: the prelude to demise.
Bolder folk – unafraid of fantastical terrors,
usually come whence daytime flees.
Those who see the dying eyes of the morning
leave, straightening brilliant eight-brass-button servicemen
coats, now streaked with the harsh pinks and smoky greys
of bloodied restitution.
Lungs fill with smog
fanned from chauvinism and derision and scorn.
Filthy pig-people – squealing, whinnying, whining –
they say all the newspapers are saying everyone’s saying it:
that purgatory is just like heaven, only less
gentrified, and cheaper!
Prey without fair-fighting chance:
miasma adorns the flesh, and flesh surrounds a soured mind.
Worth is currency and I am broke.
Haunting the edge of obscurity, the patrols
search for poverty, and denunciation, and pesky brown cunts
in boats: poor English anecdotes all wrong –
“they think we value wealth! Ha!
Take the filth away. But hand out some brochures first:
show the fuckers exactly what they’ll never hope for again.”