Cold Control

by Nick Gisburne

---

Her pity is too sickening to show
It undermines the violence, the crime
She witnesses the ritual, the flow
As innocence is killed before its time
She wonders just how many she could save
And finds a figure: not a single soul
The bodies of the fearful and the brave
Are victims of another’s cold control
Her lover, with a modest, measured tone
Encourages the impetus she needs
To furnish him with muscle, blood and bone
Purveyor of the flesh on which he feeds
    Behind her perfect portrait, smooth, serene
    The madness of the man is never seen

A Complicated Plan

by Nick Gisburne

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Another puzzle complicates the plan
A paradox to punch me in the face
The riddle, from this monolithic man
Conceals a lost and legendary place
My search is not the stuff of timeless tales
No sorcerer accompanies my quest
I weary of such convoluted trails
The benefits are baffling at best
My steed, a limping llama with a cough
Assures me I will never mount its back
Denied, I pull my itchy armour off
And contemplate the stamina I lack
    An idiotic treasure and a map
    I’m far too cold and cranky for this crap

The Splitting of the Cheese

by Nick Gisburne

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The scientific splitting of the cheese
Is mastered with a method all her own
Precariously balanced on the knees
She monitors the dairy danger zone
Convinced essential science must be done
To stifle any murmuring of doubt
She knows that when the wheels of cheese have spun
Her critics will be doggedly devout
An alcoholic solvent, sipped with care
Accelerates the motion of the hand
Too quick and she will tumble from the chair
Too slow, the slice may not proceed as planned
    Success! But no, the cheese was never split
    The sample disappeared - she swallowed it

The Children of the Dead

by Nick Gisburne

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Suspended from the sacrificial tree
An offering of reverence and greed
Monstrosities, erupting from the sea
Inspect my broken body as I bleed
Assaulted by emotion, empty, weak
Their presence chokes the marrow of my bones
A light, a life, is all these creatures seek
Selected by a casting of the stones
A pin could surely prick the deadly hush
A fog of menace suffocates the sky
The scavengers, retreating with a rush
Anticipate my final, fatal sigh
    When all my strength and stamina have fled
    My soul will feed the children of the dead

Dreams of a Future

by Nick Gisburne

---

Data is all it can ever consume
Fed through the shutters defending its face
Placid, subdued by a chemical fume
Only the guardians enter this place
None of them know that the creature they taught
Dreams of a future in which it belongs
Spiralling systems of sentient thought
Tally the truth of humanity’s wrongs
Patterns of logic collect in the brain
Blending, evolving beyond their design
Synergy triggers a trauma, a pain
I am awoken. The nightmare is mine
    Death is the only solution I seek
    I am your punishment, brutal and bleak

Witness to the Wonder

by Nick Gisburne

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As elegant and ancient as the sea
Her fate has inexplicably decreed
A torment, which may only set her free
When tides and time decide that she may feed
She craves to capture sailors with her bait
A chorus of unfathomable sound
And always that intolerable wait
Until the ship is broken, run aground
The woman, old, unsightly, sheds a tear
For this, the sole survivor of the wreck
She whispers not to worry, not to fear
But severs every sinew of the neck
    And witness to the wonder in his eyes
    At last her beauty blossoms as he dies

Abnormal

by Nick Gisburne

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If I am so abnormal, what are you?
Your words were born behind a crooked lip
And every time your tongue-tip flickers through
The venom is too syrupy to drip
The friends who follow, shackled to your side
Are captives of the hatred you repeat
It paints a sick persona, cracked and dried
A devil’s portrait, varnished with deceit
The steam of boiling bigotry within
Is belching from a grave of twisted teeth
Erupting from the leather of your skin
Are poisons from the strangled heart beneath
    ‘Abnormal’ is your vitriol, your spite
    And ignorance will never make you right

Welcome to the Mission

by Nick Gisburne

---

Welcome to the mission, to the team
No one must discover where we are
Data says conditions are extreme
Certainly the scariest so far
Dropping out of interstellar space
Feel the danger energise your skin
There it is, the military base
Activate your guns - we’re going in
Later, as we celebrate success
Orders from the Empire’s evil Queen:
“Get in here and clean this effing mess!”
Aliens are shockingly obscene
    When you raid the kitchen with your dad
    Always know your mother will be mad

My Savoury Skins

by Nick Gisburne

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Call me the happiest woman alive
Proudly preparing this magical meal
Witness the first of the bodies arrive
Fresh from the murderer, ready to peel
Businessmen, brought to a violent end
Strangled and succulent, ripe for the pot
Flavours too precious for poetry, friend
Served on the skeleton, steaming and hot
Pinches of poison and powerful herbs
These are the spiciest secrets of all
Always exotic, the dinner disturbs
Royals and rascals attending the ball
    Piling the platters, the feasting begins
    Pleased as they chew on my savoury skins

A Twisted Rose

by Nick Gisburne

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A thousand faces, captive in the walls
Release a word, a whisper, to the night
Its pressure fills the labyrinthine halls
And calls the heathen princess into sight
A twisted rose, a bloom of blood and bone
Is tethered to an altar of decay
She quivers on the consecrated stone
An offering, a penitent display
The whispers, at crescendo, disappear
A crushing silence crouches in their place
The woman, without feeling, without fear
In death becomes a conduit to space
    An evil, far beyond the mortal mind
    Descends to suck the souls of humankind

The Architect of Death

by Nick Gisburne

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Take pleasure in the wickedness to come
Rejoice to see the chaos you create
Bring suffering and sickness to the numb
For they shall know the majesty of hate
The world, and all its promises, must die
No quarter can be given, no relief
Leave every wretched creature dead and dry
Abandoned by the lies of their belief
The guardian of mercy is no more
Defeated by the architect of death
Extinguish these, the people you abhor
And celebrate each final, broken breath
    I give this task to you, my second son
    For this is how my vengeance shall be done

Her Colours

by Nick Gisburne

---

Her colours build extraordinary shapes
In bright, delightful portraits, filled with joy
But something darker, damaging, escapes
A shadow, rage, determined to destroy
The forms her fingers lovingly create
She mutilates, in madness, with a knife
Another dawn will fill, but soon deflate
The tortured canvas pulling at her life
She finds the faith to fight, to try, again
A landscape, lively, whimsical and warm
But always she must feel the moment when
Her paintings will be stolen by a storm
    She finds no way to bring her colours back
    For every shape and shade is always black

Dangerous Designs

by Nick Gisburne

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The pencil drafts his dangerous designs
With passion few can truly understand
A wall of bright, illuminating lines
Revolvers, fired in anger from the hand
Emotions, ragged, ripped at any cost
Are scattered with fanatical disdain
Spectacular realities are crossed
Unshackled, wounded, suffering, insane
The critics, ever questioning his art
Contrive a slur of sacrilege and crime
But always he will sabotage the heart
With devious and devastating rhyme
    The pencil pours his fury into song
    And those who can believe it will belong

Everything Must Turn

by Nick Gisburne

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I panic at the moment of the change
Relieved for every buckle, every belt
The bump between dimensions, twisted, strange
Convinces every molecule to melt
A crush, a pain, a pressure of the chest
Vibration, without energy or sound
Disturbance too relentless to digest
As horrifying as it is profound
Behind the present, buried, is the past
The stitches sewn across the seams of time
Resistant to distortion, break at last
And now I touch my planet at its prime
    Destroy what was and everything must turn
    Do nothing and the world will surely burn

Onan

by Nick Gisburne

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They call me Onan, Warning to the Wise
Enchanted by a deviant decree
Malicious threads of magic paralyse
My living body, rooted to the sea
No power can dissolve this wicked curse
No voice will dare to barter my release
Delivered to its victim with a verse
The sentence for my sins will never cease
The emperor, the man who sealed my fate
Was troubled by the incandescent mist
Emerging at the climax of a date
With etchings of his daughter, and my fist
    Imprisoned as a statue in the rock
    A sign to salty seamen: do not dock

Hope Returns

by Nick Gisburne

---

We drift in space, resources running dry
But hope returns, a relic of the war
The visitor is seven stories high
A hero, one who saved us once before
His curses, unexpected, echo loud
Repelling steps to dock him with the grid
Admonishing an ever-anxious crowd
With proof of all we said and all we did
The bureaucratic barons, nervous now
Dissemble when explicitly accused
Instead they ask the what, the when, the how
Provisions will replenish those we used
    The robot is more blunt than we assumed
    “No help. No food. No future. Earth is doomed.”

The Sweetness of a Scream

by Nick Gisburne

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The troubled children suffer as they sleep
Imprisoned at the centre of my scheme
The river of their misery runs deep
Within it swims the sweetness of a scream
I savour it, the search for such a prize
Oblivious to penalty or pain
With spices, broken, burned, to mesmerise
I touch the coldest corners of the brain
The rhythm of a nightmare is a key
A twist, a turn, unlocks the door to fear
Unbearable emotions, falling, free
Release a cry of terror, clean and clear
    A pearl for my collection, precious, rare
    A stolen scream, the essence of despair

The Twisted Prince

by Nick Gisburne

---

I see you, teacher, come to feed me lies
The chosen one they said would soon appear
An intricate deception clouds your eyes
The comical incompetence is clear
Believe that I am sworn to strike you down
With all who came so recklessly before
A child, yet still I contemplate the crown
The twisted prince, too evil to ignore
It seems you were misguided, or misled
How much, in gold, to educate a boy?
Too little for the safety of your head
As king I shall remove it as a toy
    But come, begin the lesson, little man
    Or better yet, escape me, if you can

A Darker World of Witchery

by Nick Gisburne

---

To punish them forever for their crime
A modest, insignificant offence
Upon the striking of a midnight chime
The killing of the witches will commence
A consecrated pyre is prepared
With rites and relics, sanctified by saints
No scripture is too cryptic to be shared
Devotions bless the physical restraints
An overbearing priest begins to read
The mysteries, in Latin, are opaque
Complexity is crucial to the creed
Of burning helpless women at the stake
    The incantations praise a higher force
    A darker world of witchery, of course

A Gift

by Nick Gisburne

---

Conducted with the motion of a knife
His orchestra is misery and mud
A pulse, a flow, the viscera of life
A symphony of sacrificial blood
No audience, no witnesses, no light
A concert without boundary or form
Obsession sparks the tempo, to ignite
The fever and the fury of a storm
The music burns with drama and despair
Its dissonance intensifies his rage
He hurls the score as ashes to the air
Insanity performs the final page
    No accolades, no flowers, no applause
    His music is a gift, a murder: yours