by Nick Gisburne
Through twisted pipes of scalding steel, we suck
Tormented souls, the wicked ones, our prey,
And, sifting through this necromantic muck,
We dig for diamonds, colours in the clay.
The multitudes of Hell, convicted, cursed,
Are dross, to be delivered to the flame,
But sometimes, in the sludge, among the worst,
We spy a secret, something not the same:
A spirit from that sickly, sterile place,
Evicted, by a prophet in our pay.
The colours burn so brightly in its face,
A tiny, trembling toy, with which we play.
Abducted from its bright, eternal bliss,
An angel even God will never miss.
Monday, 18 April 2022
The Man They Could Not Mend
by Nick Gisburne
The balcony, above, where I was born,
Is that from which I tumbled to my end.
My family denounced my death with scorn,
Abandoning the man they could not mend.
Intelligent devices took me in,
The twisted rejects from my father’s shop.
With accurate facsimiles of skin,
My saviour siblings camouflaged the drop.
I breathe; metallic organs make it so.
I move, with sleek, extraordinary grace.
Today the man who murdered me will know
The myriad emotions of my face.
I come to meet my maker, standing tall,
To give the gift he gave to me: the fall.
The balcony, above, where I was born,
Is that from which I tumbled to my end.
My family denounced my death with scorn,
Abandoning the man they could not mend.
Intelligent devices took me in,
The twisted rejects from my father’s shop.
With accurate facsimiles of skin,
My saviour siblings camouflaged the drop.
I breathe; metallic organs make it so.
I move, with sleek, extraordinary grace.
Today the man who murdered me will know
The myriad emotions of my face.
I come to meet my maker, standing tall,
To give the gift he gave to me: the fall.
Sunday, 17 April 2022
A Parasite
by Nick Gisburne
Behind the peeling paper, in the brick,
Within the walls, the chrysalids uncurl.
A jolt of acid blood, fervescent, thick,
Reanimates their hearts, each pulsing pearl.
The layers, folds of leather, stretch and split.
Their fleshy fibres, sweet, are soon consumed.
The creatures, as their sinews knot and knit,
Emerge, a dormant evil, roused, resumed.
In every city, walls of dust, destroyed,
Foreshadowing what happened once before:
A parasite a reckless race employed
To purify this world, and thousands more.
Though never meant to rise again, they breed,
And, hunting every hint of life, they feed.
Behind the peeling paper, in the brick,
Within the walls, the chrysalids uncurl.
A jolt of acid blood, fervescent, thick,
Reanimates their hearts, each pulsing pearl.
The layers, folds of leather, stretch and split.
Their fleshy fibres, sweet, are soon consumed.
The creatures, as their sinews knot and knit,
Emerge, a dormant evil, roused, resumed.
In every city, walls of dust, destroyed,
Foreshadowing what happened once before:
A parasite a reckless race employed
To purify this world, and thousands more.
Though never meant to rise again, they breed,
And, hunting every hint of life, they feed.
One More Round of Rum
by Nick Gisburne
The Barbarous Brigade of Buccaneers
Has pencilled in a winter’s Friday night
For rum and grog and strange, exotic beers.
It’s on: the salty shanties, and the fight.
A dozen crabby pirates, past their best,
Assemble, brains bewildered, blind with booze,
To dance around a dead man’s treasure chest,
Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.
Perhaps a smidge too strenuous for some,
The has-been heroes falter on their feet,
But all it takes is one more round of rum
For every soul to stagger down the street.
Ask any, “Will you come?” However far,
However old, they answer, always, “Arrrrr!”
The Barbarous Brigade of Buccaneers
Has pencilled in a winter’s Friday night
For rum and grog and strange, exotic beers.
It’s on: the salty shanties, and the fight.
A dozen crabby pirates, past their best,
Assemble, brains bewildered, blind with booze,
To dance around a dead man’s treasure chest,
Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.
Perhaps a smidge too strenuous for some,
The has-been heroes falter on their feet,
But all it takes is one more round of rum
For every soul to stagger down the street.
Ask any, “Will you come?” However far,
However old, they answer, always, “Arrrrr!”
Bent
by Nick Gisburne
My pride and joy, my brand new car, is bent,
The front of it forced halfway through a van.
A thousand raging chemicals are sent.
They tell my brain, “Decapitate this man!”
My mother is as calm as I’d expect,
For someone who was nearly torn in two,
But, somewhere in her psyche, I suspect
She’d like to find a knife to run him through.
That worthless little shit brick jumped the lights.
How hard is it to notice they were red?
I’ve never been a fan of fists, or fights,
But what a price I’d pay to see him dead.
I call him out. “You maniac! You’re mad!”
He chuckles. Nothing ever dents my dad.
My pride and joy, my brand new car, is bent,
The front of it forced halfway through a van.
A thousand raging chemicals are sent.
They tell my brain, “Decapitate this man!”
My mother is as calm as I’d expect,
For someone who was nearly torn in two,
But, somewhere in her psyche, I suspect
She’d like to find a knife to run him through.
That worthless little shit brick jumped the lights.
How hard is it to notice they were red?
I’ve never been a fan of fists, or fights,
But what a price I’d pay to see him dead.
I call him out. “You maniac! You’re mad!”
He chuckles. Nothing ever dents my dad.
Saturday, 16 April 2022
A Thousand Evil Ends
by Nick Gisburne
Three princes seal him in a secret room,
But, conjuring deceit, beyond their sight,
A single spark, an instrument of doom,
Ignites the sky, to slice and split the night.
A reaching, writhing misery descends.
It creeps in coils of flesh and sable smoke,
The goddess of a thousand evil ends,
Compelled by curses, sins the shaman spoke.
Awakened from a time-tormented spell,
From which her soul, imprisoned, surges free,
She pulls her scheming saviour from his cell,
To ask him, “Why release me now? Why me?”
“My goddess, lover, queen. My life. My breath.
Our sons betrayed us. Let them pay, with death.”
Three princes seal him in a secret room,
But, conjuring deceit, beyond their sight,
A single spark, an instrument of doom,
Ignites the sky, to slice and split the night.
A reaching, writhing misery descends.
It creeps in coils of flesh and sable smoke,
The goddess of a thousand evil ends,
Compelled by curses, sins the shaman spoke.
Awakened from a time-tormented spell,
From which her soul, imprisoned, surges free,
She pulls her scheming saviour from his cell,
To ask him, “Why release me now? Why me?”
“My goddess, lover, queen. My life. My breath.
Our sons betrayed us. Let them pay, with death.”
Spotless
by Nick Gisburne
Though every inch is spotless, scrubbed, pristine,
Her mind imagines oceans of disease,
A seething swamp, impossible to clean.
She weeps, in silence, falling to her knees.
In bondage to this pointless, painful toil,
Unable now to simply step aside,
Invisible contaminants despoil
The peace she is eternally denied.
No fragment, not a corner of her mind,
Reveals a rhyme, a reason, for the curse.
Obsession leaves her powerless to find
Salvation from a tainted universe.
Again, forever, constantly, she cleans,
Oblivious to what her madness means.
Though every inch is spotless, scrubbed, pristine,
Her mind imagines oceans of disease,
A seething swamp, impossible to clean.
She weeps, in silence, falling to her knees.
In bondage to this pointless, painful toil,
Unable now to simply step aside,
Invisible contaminants despoil
The peace she is eternally denied.
No fragment, not a corner of her mind,
Reveals a rhyme, a reason, for the curse.
Obsession leaves her powerless to find
Salvation from a tainted universe.
Again, forever, constantly, she cleans,
Oblivious to what her madness means.
See Me Smiling
by Nick Gisburne
Another nerve refuses to respond.
Another muscle paralysed by pain.
Through limits on my life, I reach beyond,
To steal, or borrow, what will keep me sane.
A curious condition, to be sure,
To find my body failing, piece by piece.
Yet still, without the promise of a cure,
I turn from sweet oblivion’s release.
Approaching strange horizons, secret doors,
I wrap my heart with bands of shining steel.
A hundred daily struggles, endless wars,
But nothing now destroys my need to feel.
Tomorrow, I may lose a little more,
But see me smiling, stronger than before.
Another nerve refuses to respond.
Another muscle paralysed by pain.
Through limits on my life, I reach beyond,
To steal, or borrow, what will keep me sane.
A curious condition, to be sure,
To find my body failing, piece by piece.
Yet still, without the promise of a cure,
I turn from sweet oblivion’s release.
Approaching strange horizons, secret doors,
I wrap my heart with bands of shining steel.
A hundred daily struggles, endless wars,
But nothing now destroys my need to feel.
Tomorrow, I may lose a little more,
But see me smiling, stronger than before.
Friday, 15 April 2022
Another Class of Evil
by Nick Gisburne
A secretive, selective, sacred school
Infuses fear and loathing through the soul.
Its bedrock is a twisted root, a rule:
The purest, seeking evil, shall be whole.
Destructive dogma cultivates contempt.
No deviance, no doubt, defies the script.
As one, the minds of children, turned, attempt
No challenge, lest their errant flesh be whipped.
Indoctrination, ritual, routine,
Where thought becomes a tool to serve the strong.
The mantra that outsiders are unclean
Compels the heart to follow, to belong.
Another class of evil walks the streets,
While new recruits, unsoiled, assume their seats.
A secretive, selective, sacred school
Infuses fear and loathing through the soul.
Its bedrock is a twisted root, a rule:
The purest, seeking evil, shall be whole.
Destructive dogma cultivates contempt.
No deviance, no doubt, defies the script.
As one, the minds of children, turned, attempt
No challenge, lest their errant flesh be whipped.
Indoctrination, ritual, routine,
Where thought becomes a tool to serve the strong.
The mantra that outsiders are unclean
Compels the heart to follow, to belong.
Another class of evil walks the streets,
While new recruits, unsoiled, assume their seats.
The Face Within the Fire
by Nick Gisburne
His miracles attract the living light,
A lustrous, liquid energy, a flame.
Enchanted, pulled, it penetrates the night,
And circles as the shaman speaks its name.
He calls it ‘friend’, a gift, a guide, a soul,
A conduit, a curve of twisted space.
He does not plead for power, for control.
He seeks, instead, forgiveness, from a face.
Connected to the cold, eternal void,
His whispered words are shapes of shame and sin.
The love, the light, the distant dreams, destroyed,
For these he begs for mercy, from within.
The face within the fire fills the skies,
And burns him with the hatred in her eyes.
His miracles attract the living light,
A lustrous, liquid energy, a flame.
Enchanted, pulled, it penetrates the night,
And circles as the shaman speaks its name.
He calls it ‘friend’, a gift, a guide, a soul,
A conduit, a curve of twisted space.
He does not plead for power, for control.
He seeks, instead, forgiveness, from a face.
Connected to the cold, eternal void,
His whispered words are shapes of shame and sin.
The love, the light, the distant dreams, destroyed,
For these he begs for mercy, from within.
The face within the fire fills the skies,
And burns him with the hatred in her eyes.
Thursday, 14 April 2022
The Secrets of the Dead
by Nick Gisburne
For you, the seeker, shadows stand revealed,
The secrets of the dark, the damned, the dead.
The pricking of a thumb, by stealth concealed,
Untwists the charm, its malice fired and fed.
One drop, one bead of blood from mortal man,
One crimson pearl to permeate the page,
Reanimates the primitive, the plan,
Appalling scriptures from a fallen age.
A hush, a silent fear to freeze your flesh.
Embrace it. Stronger minds, insane, have died.
Your soul, in flux, in torment, fades. Let fresh,
Exotic, nameless nightmares be your guide.
Find evil in the pages of the book,
As Fanny Cradock teaches you to cook.
For you, the seeker, shadows stand revealed,
The secrets of the dark, the damned, the dead.
The pricking of a thumb, by stealth concealed,
Untwists the charm, its malice fired and fed.
One drop, one bead of blood from mortal man,
One crimson pearl to permeate the page,
Reanimates the primitive, the plan,
Appalling scriptures from a fallen age.
A hush, a silent fear to freeze your flesh.
Embrace it. Stronger minds, insane, have died.
Your soul, in flux, in torment, fades. Let fresh,
Exotic, nameless nightmares be your guide.
Find evil in the pages of the book,
As Fanny Cradock teaches you to cook.
They Come
by Nick Gisburne
With knives, with needles, teeth and tusks, they come,
And we, the Guard, the grand police of state,
Prepare the flesh with armour, rockets, rum.
For havoc, for the holocaust, we wait.
On every branch and root, on every tree,
Mechanics hurl a pale, corrosive grease.
Whatever gods these beasts pretend to be,
One touch, one taste, will strip their skins of peace.
Deceptive ramparts, granite, stone, and steel,
Conceal a thousand seams of shock and pain.
Unfettered guns display the Starlight Seal
Of Saturn and the Colonies of Spain.
As ready as our minds could ever be,
We tremble at the scale of what we see.
With knives, with needles, teeth and tusks, they come,
And we, the Guard, the grand police of state,
Prepare the flesh with armour, rockets, rum.
For havoc, for the holocaust, we wait.
On every branch and root, on every tree,
Mechanics hurl a pale, corrosive grease.
Whatever gods these beasts pretend to be,
One touch, one taste, will strip their skins of peace.
Deceptive ramparts, granite, stone, and steel,
Conceal a thousand seams of shock and pain.
Unfettered guns display the Starlight Seal
Of Saturn and the Colonies of Spain.
As ready as our minds could ever be,
We tremble at the scale of what we see.
A Thread of Silk
by Nick Gisburne
A thread of silk, not ready, yet, to break,
She spins her story, inch by inch, through time.
With every fault, a knot, a small mistake,
She flinches at the folly of the crime.
She drags a heavy load, her life, her past,
And every error adds another stone.
The difficult reminders time amassed,
With fate, with failure, weigh on every bone.
Determined, with a salty, snarling cry,
She lifts a middle finger to the day.
Defiant, she declines to justify
The twisting path she treads to make her way.
Between the flaws her silk is perfect, pure,
And only time can break a strand so sure.
A thread of silk, not ready, yet, to break,
She spins her story, inch by inch, through time.
With every fault, a knot, a small mistake,
She flinches at the folly of the crime.
She drags a heavy load, her life, her past,
And every error adds another stone.
The difficult reminders time amassed,
With fate, with failure, weigh on every bone.
Determined, with a salty, snarling cry,
She lifts a middle finger to the day.
Defiant, she declines to justify
The twisting path she treads to make her way.
Between the flaws her silk is perfect, pure,
And only time can break a strand so sure.
Reborn
by Nick Gisburne
A minor wound, the tiniest of bites.
We lock him in the cellar all the same.
The light inside him fades as troubled nights
Replace his sober thoughts with shade and shame.
A strange, dynamic entity evolves,
Still fighting with the damage to his mind.
The cure, in which we have no faith, involves
The sweat and skin of all of us, combined.
A filthy rash, infected, forms a crust,
And soon becomes a suffocating shell.
We fear disaster, vowing that we must
Restrict what grows within it to the cell.
The chrysalis erupts. He did not die.
He stretches, bright, reborn, a butterfly.
A minor wound, the tiniest of bites.
We lock him in the cellar all the same.
The light inside him fades as troubled nights
Replace his sober thoughts with shade and shame.
A strange, dynamic entity evolves,
Still fighting with the damage to his mind.
The cure, in which we have no faith, involves
The sweat and skin of all of us, combined.
A filthy rash, infected, forms a crust,
And soon becomes a suffocating shell.
We fear disaster, vowing that we must
Restrict what grows within it to the cell.
The chrysalis erupts. He did not die.
He stretches, bright, reborn, a butterfly.
Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Oh Dear
by Nick Gisburne
I need to push these probes inside your neck.
Don’t worry. Quick and painless. Nearly done.
How curious. No, let me double-check.
You’re glowing like the surface of the sun.
You really cannot feel these extra volts?
The power should be melting you to slag.
There’s something underneath these tension bolts.
What’s this? A Martian military tag?
You’re modified with tech I’ve never seen,
But still behaving like a standard bot.
Your central core, according to my screen,
Is somehow unimaginably hot.
It’s nothing I can stabilise with ice.
Oh dear. An armed apocalypse device.
I need to push these probes inside your neck.
Don’t worry. Quick and painless. Nearly done.
How curious. No, let me double-check.
You’re glowing like the surface of the sun.
You really cannot feel these extra volts?
The power should be melting you to slag.
There’s something underneath these tension bolts.
What’s this? A Martian military tag?
You’re modified with tech I’ve never seen,
But still behaving like a standard bot.
Your central core, according to my screen,
Is somehow unimaginably hot.
It’s nothing I can stabilise with ice.
Oh dear. An armed apocalypse device.
A Swarm of Sequins
by Nick Gisburne
The sun, extinguished, yields its final rays.
The engine of eternity is dead.
Each smudge of life, suspended in the haze,
Is lost to time, or, in the fog, has fled.
We walk upon a carpet of the stars,
Where trivial concerns, forgotten, fade.
A swarm of sequins, gypsy avatars,
In exodus we wander, cold, afraid.
A book of rumours, scribbled gibberish,
Gives hope, perhaps too little, or too much.
For we who dream, who taste the faith, the wish,
A new religion rises at our touch.
We mourn for what has passed, the dying light,
But look, with brave belief, beyond the night.
The sun, extinguished, yields its final rays.
The engine of eternity is dead.
Each smudge of life, suspended in the haze,
Is lost to time, or, in the fog, has fled.
We walk upon a carpet of the stars,
Where trivial concerns, forgotten, fade.
A swarm of sequins, gypsy avatars,
In exodus we wander, cold, afraid.
A book of rumours, scribbled gibberish,
Gives hope, perhaps too little, or too much.
For we who dream, who taste the faith, the wish,
A new religion rises at our touch.
We mourn for what has passed, the dying light,
But look, with brave belief, beyond the night.
Smoking Shadows
by Nick Gisburne
I hate you, in so many wicked ways,
An all-consuming cancer of the mind.
Remembering a tender word or phrase
Reminds me I was gullible, and blind.
A subtle serpent paints your lips with lies,
A sweetness cut with sour, spiteful noise.
In distant, deadly, passion-painted eyes
Are promises, a torture for your toys.
I see the smoking shadows of your soul,
The devil in that diabolic heart,
But I am not a puppet to control,
No victim, tricked and trampled, torn apart.
I hate you, every fibre, every bone,
For every twist of torment I was shown.
I hate you, in so many wicked ways,
An all-consuming cancer of the mind.
Remembering a tender word or phrase
Reminds me I was gullible, and blind.
A subtle serpent paints your lips with lies,
A sweetness cut with sour, spiteful noise.
In distant, deadly, passion-painted eyes
Are promises, a torture for your toys.
I see the smoking shadows of your soul,
The devil in that diabolic heart,
But I am not a puppet to control,
No victim, tricked and trampled, torn apart.
I hate you, every fibre, every bone,
For every twist of torment I was shown.
Tuesday, 12 April 2022
I Thirst for Blood
by Nick Gisburne
I wish I were a bigger, bolder bat,
But pine was all the coffin I could buy.
Without a cape and cane, without a hat,
What vampire clan, with me, would share the sky?
A lower class of virgin feeds my lust,
The gnarly nightmares no one else will touch.
My inner sanctum? Cobwebs, dirt and dust.
No servants. Even cleaners cost too much.
I had a mindless slave, but even he
Decided I would never make the grade.
He left to start a media degree.
I wish him well, but still I feel betrayed.
I thirst for blood, of course, but let’s be frank,
I’d rather have a disappointing wank.
I wish I were a bigger, bolder bat,
But pine was all the coffin I could buy.
Without a cape and cane, without a hat,
What vampire clan, with me, would share the sky?
A lower class of virgin feeds my lust,
The gnarly nightmares no one else will touch.
My inner sanctum? Cobwebs, dirt and dust.
No servants. Even cleaners cost too much.
I had a mindless slave, but even he
Decided I would never make the grade.
He left to start a media degree.
I wish him well, but still I feel betrayed.
I thirst for blood, of course, but let’s be frank,
I’d rather have a disappointing wank.
Stop the Heart
by Nick Gisburne
A serum for the halting of their hearts
Bestows complete protection as they fly.
In seven generations life restarts,
A bargain signed and sealed before they ‘die’.
No sleeper ever lasted long enough.
Suspended animation does not work.
However primed the cells, however tough,
The brain decays, a disappointing quirk.
But stop the heart, download the mind, and freeze
The body. This is genius design.
Fit twice the frozen colonists, with ease,
And ship them on a low-cost budget line.
Alas, the lab experiments were flawed.
The ship restores a hungry zombie horde.
A serum for the halting of their hearts
Bestows complete protection as they fly.
In seven generations life restarts,
A bargain signed and sealed before they ‘die’.
No sleeper ever lasted long enough.
Suspended animation does not work.
However primed the cells, however tough,
The brain decays, a disappointing quirk.
But stop the heart, download the mind, and freeze
The body. This is genius design.
Fit twice the frozen colonists, with ease,
And ship them on a low-cost budget line.
Alas, the lab experiments were flawed.
The ship restores a hungry zombie horde.
Your Guilt
by Nick Gisburne
Bow down, bow low, and beg for mercy’s hand,
For this is not a scene you can survive.
The evidence is seamless. Understand?
It cracks the cold excuses you contrive.
With trickery your twisted mouth is full,
Indifference polluting every plea.
You cannot ride this rampant, raging bull,
Demanding, ever foolish, to be free.
No blush of guilt, not even when you’re caught.
How cosy now, the cushion of your lies?
Denial is the dogma were taught,
And here it is, in colour. No surprise.
Corruption breaks the wicked wall you built,
And in its dust and rubble is your guilt.
Bow down, bow low, and beg for mercy’s hand,
For this is not a scene you can survive.
The evidence is seamless. Understand?
It cracks the cold excuses you contrive.
With trickery your twisted mouth is full,
Indifference polluting every plea.
You cannot ride this rampant, raging bull,
Demanding, ever foolish, to be free.
No blush of guilt, not even when you’re caught.
How cosy now, the cushion of your lies?
Denial is the dogma were taught,
And here it is, in colour. No surprise.
Corruption breaks the wicked wall you built,
And in its dust and rubble is your guilt.