Absolutism

Friday night, six cans
           of the uncanny. That’s
a mind trick, das
           unheimliche. Black

oil-slick of sight, stick
          of sickly liquorice
from the unconscious.
          There are some visions

you never return from.
         Or if returned, come back
as salvage, damaged and
         savage. Visage with jaws,

emblem of heaven. The eye
         cannot hold the halls
of gold. On the ward the word
          went round

that you were back and
           that you’d seen heaven
and hell in the ineffable.
        Student shrinks wringing

their hands, crying out
          their cataracts, shaking
the pills and the scrolls
          from their sleeves. Sinking

to their knees at your feet
          as you’d sleep. Bedside
lectern, discerning disciples
          listening intently

to the lecture of your medicated
          snores. Imbibing
the crystalline religion
          of your technicolour

tremor dreams.

 

 

Necromancy

This dissociative
          disorder renders me
voyeur of my own
          memoirs. Watch
the world in trauma

          vision. Plasma
miasma mama. Fibre
          apparatchiks,
psychotropic optics
          make the bodyclock

tick icky. Aftershock
          of hits and licks
gives face and cheeks
          these tics. Stutters
the synaptics, fux

          the syntax, pray
to mantis of an addict’s
          praxis. Violence made
the speech tourettes.
          Forked-tongue,

morgue orphan
          mouths taboos.
Tourniquet marionette,
          ventriloquise
familial ghouls.

 

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Miggy Angel is the author of the poetry collections Grime Kerbstone Psalms published by Celandor Books – and most recently Extreme Violets published by Hi Vis Press. He is the host and organiser of the monthly poetry event Speech Therapy, the facilitator of the Do Or Die Poets (a weekly creative writing workshop for people in addiction recovery) and is the editor and founder of Burning House Press.