Snare And Other Poems, Michael McAloran

Snare-

Severed night

Laughter of the bellows

Decanted meat

Stripped endless shadow

Breath escapes as an animal from

A rusty snare

The clouds shimmer electric

Dust upon my face

Blight-

Wrenched

Crackle of bones in the flame

Desire of death

The desire of death

The laughter of the damned

Snared by the teeth

Of the night

Meat of the night

Extraction of fingernails

Blessed we laugh

For we are not for the length of it

The blight of fleeting hope

Burns the bloody fingertips

Frozen-

Cemetery of laughter

The bones wrapped in dusty lace

Kissing the orifices of dead hands

The blood-stained lips

Kissing the winds of cold frozen flesh

The clouds thickening like furtive scars

Cemetery of laughter

Spitting at the endless night

Vacant-

To rake

To kiss

Velvet sky

A bleeding heart

Burning at a dead pace

Ice of the tongue

Flesh o’ my flesh drifting

Above the bones

Fragments of desire

Above ground

Above death

Still nullified

Tears of dread

Broken scattered flowers

My absent

Vacant skull

Extinguished-

Teeth chatter

Wound upon wound

Dead still as shattered

Hands bound in

Barbed wire like kisses

Trace of the wind

Rupturing the eye

Fragmented laughter

Echoing dry laughter

Night of corrupt darkness

Spits

Furtive

Well-spring of

Desire

Extinguished

Absent-

Lick the cleft eye

Split fingers bleeding

Tongue of shrapnel

Of silence

A light bulb flickers

Swarm of bloody flies

Dressed o’ my smiles

Bile

Cunt exposed

Scars redeemed

Echo of bone

I shake in my blood

Gilded the fragrant touch

The bones melt

Into a pool

Of absent

Light

Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His family moved to the south of Ireland due to ‘The Troubles’. He has travelled extensively in Europe, living for brief spells in both Holland & Italy. His most recent work has appeared/ is forthcoming in Why Vandalism?, Carcinogenic, Danse Macabre, Heavy Bear. He also has work forthcoming in a chapbook anthology from Virgogray Press.