Coroner’s Report
They call you
Gentleman
Then list the quantities of
Heroin, crack and alcohol
Head injuries
Cellulites
(Heh, no wonder you were depressed)
The groin abscess
Injected just the day before
Nicotine on your fingers
Dirt under your nails
(No lipstick on your collar)
Asthmatic
‘Keep that cat off his bed’ Mum said
Hepatitis
C
Unwashed feet
Time of death
Lungs congested,
Kidneys disintegrated
But sorry mate your
Intestines were unremarkable.
Sue Johns
Hush
(On visiting Lab’s grave)
Pink ‘Awakening’ persistent in its climbing,
white ‘Echo’ needy for sun,
red and resistant ‘Blaze’ and
in my teeth a ‘Dog Rose’
wild and needle sharp-
Torn from the oasis
of a collective conscience.
I refuse to underwrite
the estimable silence
from which your soundtrack seeps.
My tongue held by
a scold’s bridle
as ancient songs extinguish
the man you became.
I bundle secrets from off a page,
Take my dry semantics
to the rough stone and
barren sod that mark you.
A mute fire-starter
bearing flammable ink and flowers.
Iron Age Burial
On the death of Margaret Thatcher
The crows bring coal,
(community’s shadow)
draw a shield
around the masses-
a black-winged picket line.
Magpies
scour ancient sites of work,
for weeds and window glass,
to deck the dirt
of prejudice and pound.
As maggots
make bold in a bouffant,
dark eyes U-turn with worms
and slugs trudge
over neck and ruff.
They come – coughing up
the phlegm of street-sleeping.
And pissing out the system’s poison,
since they imbibed a final,
living draught.
Not soft-shoed in silence,
but booted-big and laughing-brave.
In place of rest, their pledge,
a mud memorial
for the soiling of the land.
Sue Johns
