The Bad Seed

This one is sunset red, rich as womb blood,

Thick as flesh:

It tastes of fire and sex

And finger probes the hollow folds

Of dormant rotten mass

While eggshell strips are slowly ripped

With tainted talons and Godless taunts.

The blue is sharp, neon, etheric,

Cauterising the eyes,

A topography of dilapidated sky:

It shrivels the soul

In static strata -

The stark vastness

Of its wide open

Restless space,

A question mark?

And this fibre of daffadown yellow:

It grips and scorches

The sleeping heart

With cruel springtime

Flick knife twists -

A cabbage moth

On wings of vacant hope.

These strands of primal colour

Weaving through light and dark

Spirals of sunken spectrum:

A loom of illumination;

Its cloth,

A spectral aquarelle

Of phosphorescent wash,

An edgeless sfumato rainbow;

Dazzling,

But ever deceptive

To the finger's tentative touch.

See this pink one?

It promises purification:

The cold calm recollection

Of selfless, soul-embracing love,

But do not listen to its lies -

For like a siren sat on coral rocks

Its song will surely tempt you

To the massive heaving shoreline

And dash your spirit to dust.

And this mossy Kerry green:

A corrosive mist which dimly caresses

The steely harp's catgut strings,

Ringing out a saline tune

Which rusts the bridge

Which spans the years

From battered birth to wistful grave.

And all these colours, a blurred contusion

And all the polychromatic confusion

From mother of pearl to brown and grey,

A myriad hues of every shade:

From sable strokes on sacking cloth

And pigment smears of clotted oil,

The sheeted mirror of wants and needs;

A lust for life and trust in death,

A karmic cheque of thoughts and deeds,

These rainbow ribbons which steal the breath.

The web is flexible, but tightly spun,

Allowing the illusion of movement

Whilst holding you fast.

There is the smell of cordite and sweat

And a vague hint of threat,

But nothing tangible,

Nothing you can grasp

(And anyway, your hands are tied).

You dance in the shaman's shadow,

A whirling dervish,

Trailing ribbons in your wake,

In acid arcs of burning colour.

You are dancing in a dreamscape,

A shifting topography

Of ruined cities, deserts

And empty highways.

There is a vague hint of holocaust,

But nothing tangible

(And anyway, it's always summer now

In your dreams).

Imagine then, the book of the dead,

Lying unread

On your bedside table.

Imagine the smells of sex and sweat,

The upturned cup of blood,

The vomit pile

Of black bile flowers.

Now, enter the actor, stage left:

A cascade of black narcissi

Clasped to his breast.

He kisses them in the half light

With fat petulant lips

All a pouting;

And plucks them from their stems

With fickle finger tips

As his audience watches, delighted,

In suspense,

Waiting for something to snap.

And in the unlit back alley

Where the wind whips up

The weekend's detritus

A primal drama is re-enacted:

Hunter and quarry

Pirouette

A pornographic hieroglyph -

Iconoclastic

In the stillness of the night.

And then you're back in this city room

With the rain falling all over the blankets

And her sobbing beside you,

A broken doll

In your thick arms,

A thesaurus of platitudes

spilling from your tongue,

And the echo of a scream

Ringing round your ears.

Then the contractions come on,

Tight

And tighter still:

There's klaxons and sirens and bells;

And ribbons, all pretty coloured,

Blowing about like a bloody jamboree.

He was naked on the motorway, running away:

Tattered fetters trailing from his wrists;

The sweat dribbling in his eyes,

Burning.

He was running blind:

His head, a blur

Of cathode radiation.

It was a particularly twisted sadism

That caused them to inflict upon him

The hollow brands and blandishments

Peculiar to their station.

"Cruel to be kind

And kind to be cruel." They said,

Whilst rubbing together

Their fat glutinous hands

And secreting saliva

From involuntary glands.

And all the while inside,

Deep inside,

The small boy

Who's trying to hide:

The small boy

They cannot touch

Who misses his mummy

Very much.

And through the filthy smog of time

With all its chaos and its grime

You want to reach and grab the light

And assure the boy it'll be alright.

But there's no reaching back now:

The turnpike here

Only twists one way

and the turnpike keeper

Must be paid.

You know these celluloid strips

Lodged in your brain?

They cannot be edited:

Only played

Again and again and again.

They made him take the ribbons in his hands

And tie them up in patterns and proportions

With numbers and common denominations

In fractious factions

Associated with corporations

Where mumbo jumbo preachers preached:

"Each according to his station"

And pointing pedants each repeated

A list of rules and regulations

While tangents curved their measured arcs

Of quadratic inequation

(and this indeed they deigned to call

A 'comprehensive' education).

They said it was good for him, this.

They said it was good, but he never heard.

He just went right on crying

On and on about the dead bird:

The dead bird on the splattered tarmac,

All red blood and neon green.

So they tied him up and made him smile

and stuffed his head with cotton wool

And filled him up unto the brim

With whisky, sex and gold.

They said that it was good for him,

Good for him to be a man:

So he smiled & drunk & fucked & fought

And placed a mask upon his face.

And when at last he was undone

They let him go upon his way,

Past the turnpike and the toll

Then over the hills and faraway.

He watched,

In shock,

The black bird

Spiral and fall

And crash,

Crash black

Into the tarmac:

A slash of black

Thru' a sky

Of silver and neon.

Sweet bird of death,

Sweet bird

In a sick green world.

He stooped over

And watched:

So unable to touch.

Charcoal thing,

So little

In its broken wings

With its broken eyes

And broken beak.

Charcoal

In the charnel soil:

Falling and flailing

In short sharp gasps

Of the nervous end.

These brackish waters

Do not slake the thirst,

Nor put out

The acid fires

That burn the holes within.

This bird is shallow shadow:

A grey echo, receding,

Retreating into grey dawn -

Its bleached bones, broken;

The gawping beak

Singing no song.

This seed has grown within:

A barren twisted tree;

Its roots thrust into acrid soil;

Its branches flocked

With winged cadavers

Who fuck and fight

And eat and shite

Under awnings

Of rotten blossom

And disappointed fruit.

The girl with the sugarsweet smile

Is no longer sweet or smiling:

Her face is copper green,

Scrubbed clean

Of all expression;

Any lingering trace of secretion

Has neatly been showered away.

The only tangible impression

Of any emotion

Is seen in the trembling of hands;

And these you imagine

Viciously pulling,

Tighter and tighter,

The ribbons around your brain.

10.

In the pissing river,

Drinking the dust

Into your lungs:

Penitent

Arched

And straining;

And all the while

The pissing river

Raining

Raining.

11.

Upon the terracotta ribbon strand

The Angel entreats him,

Silently pleading:

"Behold the lamb of God!"

The lamb stares blindly out

From bleeding inward eye,

Crying aloud: "My God, My God,

Why didst thou deceive me?"

Oil black crow

Sweeps a parabola arc

Crashing black

Into the tarmac.

The motorway is empty, eerie:

He treads the tarmac wordlessly,

Ether & blood & ice

Pumping to the rhythm of the night.

The Angel, all-knowing,

But elusive,

Gives a knowing look:

Alludes to the good seed

Buried safe

Behind the looking glass.

Crumpled by gravity,

He peers gravely

Into the glass:

A pool of fool's gold.

The crow,

Black and majestic,

Laughs;

And in one swift

Mercurial leap,

Impales the lamb

Upon his beak.

12.

Stranded on the central reservation,

Soaked in oily spindrift,

With the seagulls calling:

Black waves crash

Upon shifting sands

And the sun beats down,

Relentless.

Along the strand,

Shimmering in heat haze,

An Angel approaches,

Beckoning.

Then she's gone:

Just the motorway remaining;

And in the depths of sky,

No stars,

No fire -

Only the pissing river,

Raining

Raining.

13.

Her eyes are red and dry:

The war rages

In the dark corners

Of her head.

Mirrors and windows are sheeted:

Shadowy figures mourn

The passing

Of the dead.

14.

He kisses her hair

And says: "there there"

But his mind is elsewhere.

He blows an indifferent whisper

Into the depths of her ear

And little shivers run thru' her,

Like the shivering of waves

On a cold blue sea.

Her eyes are pools:

Her mouth, a river;

Her body, an ocean.

He treads her restless shoreline,

Uneasily naked,

A starfish grasped

In his soft wet hand.

Fumble fingered,

He strokes it;

And filaments of dust

Detach and fall,

Feathery as spindrift.

15.

She talks about her father;

And the dislocation

In the faraway spaces

Behind his eyes.

Her voice is soft,

Almost sobbing:

It murmurs like the riptide.

Her father had strange eyes:

He was a stranger

From a faraway place.

She touches her breast,

Cries a broken doll cry,

"Papa, papa."

Her eyes glaze,

Skin flowers red:

"Love me, love me," she says.

Her body thrashes beneath him:

An angry ocean,

Swollen

And torn open.

16.

They fuck on the motorway:

The crows go wild

And fly away.

She is cool, blue-eyed:

Slow as a river in floodtide.

The process is sad and unending:

A funeral procession

Thru' childhood streets;

Past crumbling buildings

And open closemouths

Where lovers trade

Darkling kisses,

Shaky and bursting.

His eyes are ashes,

His lips, dry:

The birds are scattered;

A flurry of black wings

Clattering

Against a rusted metal sky.

Loneliness creeps upon him,

Wraps her tarry arms

Around his broken frame

And drags him further in.

17.

She whispers her panic into his ears:

Endless channels and passages

Into empty space.

He is dreaming in empty space.

They fuck

In blind, groping fury,

Clinging together:

They come together

And come apart.

Her tears are a dream in empty space.

Her song is sung

And everything is done and undone.

They hold onto each other:

They hold on for dear life.

Read more of Dee Rimbaud's poetry

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