o Prozac
I'm very nearly free ofyou Completely
Surgeon's hue & Snowy Owl'sprecision Allthat's left'sto choose my insurrection
Turn, a fearsome lyrist —Eurydicean smithereens
Or bare my self, a god
— your bodyburns likeSemele
Nigredo
... various terms [...] have found their wayinto many a description of the individuationprocess: nigredo, for the dark night of the soul,when an individual confronts the shadow within— Hopcke
I don't love you anymore,I don't think I ever did— Eurythmics
Dark shadow, I don't love youanymore (you're deadly, thesea of Ezekiel; theflame forever roiling thebush; the soil, thorny, hardened;the wind of the beginning),
I don't think I ever did.
Mary's songafter Sexton; and Plath
O my God, such a painin the arse!Thirty years torturingvacuous youth:
enlacingblack rah-rahskirts, watered-down tunes.
Clubbing each night, I'd mimic GraceJones, heartscorchingmy ribcage, its sinew.
Like, hey,I was no more an artistthan Yorkshire'shideous sooth
-sayer.Cross my palmwith silver crowns she'd warble.Bless you
wretched children I'd betray.What a laugh,the glory,the assumption. The scoop
lays in Arcadia ...My only hope, my lastingact: I borea blond with baby blues.
I wanted to be famous,I wanted to be a big star.I went to New Yorkand my dream came true.
N. B. eighth verse from Madonna Live — The Virgin Tour, Warner Music Video, 1985
Tiger Lily knifes Captain Hook
'Pirate he ironed, boozestrewing its darkness, pirate ...arrr! as I strode the Hotel's unctuousdeck for the first time since the accident.__________________________Where's mywooden leg then, huh; my black and whitestriped corset; my shoulder-clawingmacaw; have I neglected Halloween?
Later, polystyrene at my table,he bobbed to the gobbled clock'stick-tock. If you was a man Idanever, never said nuthin ...______________________If youwere a man you could nevernever sufferthis hideous black leather patch.'
Holy Saturday
From a pine's still tip this blackdisconsolate god unlooses quavers.Where's the magpie, wattlebird
and mynah? Milky, honeyed caffeine scalds my palate.Two paddy wagons, two illumined hearsesfill the driveway: on one's tray
slumps an addict, handcuffed, faceless.Spilling up from concrete sheets: nothing like compassion;just the blindness of disciples, bald and shirred.
Stuart Barnes' poetry has been published in Qarrtsiluni, Mascara Literary Review, Overland, The Warwick Review, The Weekend Australian Review and VLAK: Contemporary Poetics & the Arts. His first accepted short story, 'Mother and Son', about his coming out, can be read at Verity La. He lives