Jak Kirwin
@jakkirwin
Chores
We wage a holy war
Against entropy
Against time
Against the slow
Disintegration of
Everything.
Every hour
We edge closer to
Dust and grime and
Mildew, we dance about
An eternal swirling
Nothing.
No words
Could describe the
Anger and the boredom
The bleakness of perfection
A gleaming evil angel
Brandishing a burning sword
In the holy war we wage.
Frontier
We are all on the fringes
Of a barren plain
Scarcely brushed by light
Our culture writhes in permafrost
We won’t outlive this age of impotence.
Overt pleasure remains a sin
We cannot kick our longing for a master,
To be controlled, to be reduced to a
Humourless putrid sludge, to be
Stomped out and reduced with salt.
You get the sense that great evil
Lingers on the crescent, a hate
No flowers may redeem, standing
At the edge of the earth and
Looking back, all is rust.
Sophie
Is there a name for the fear
That has caused this great
Retreat into illusion?
What weird logic bluffs as
Reason drowns in spectacle
And we forget our lovers’ names?
Have you the nuts and bolts
To put me back together?
Can the milk and cream calm
The chilli up in my eyes?
Sweetness, sweet hungry death,
You’re a delicate high in mango flesh,
Crumple on my tongue, melt through my mind
You’re a pixie-lipped trip, sugar plum pie
I’d become just like nothing if I dared to resist
I’d go mute and earnest, I’d forget to exist
Spit
Mystery in lingerie
Dodges denim wolves
Her heart is a compass
She lives by the stars
She was spat into life and
Kicked out of bars and
Sin never caught her off-guard
She leant into everything
Strung out in the wind
Clutching her trench coat
Her head starts to spin
Every night like the last
She’ll sing, squeal and dance
Over cracks in the concrete
And the infinite expanse
Red lights and puddles
Pug dogs and riddles
It can all be yours baby
Go on, roll the dice
George Street feels blue
As I tread over wine drunks
And think back to you
Buttery
I survived the propaganda machine,
That screeching globe of molten embers,
Now is the time to unlock the cage
And devour my still virgin books
To return to the earthly and real
Full of scorn and thorns and pride
The old Christ is still swimming
On a mythic beach bathed in butter
Where there is no noise or lust bait
There exists only stars of turquoise and crimson
To illuminate unbreakable waves
The old Christ wades through purple peace
But could it be, we have the same disease
And only love and wonder make it worse?
You’re looking great but how do you feel?
It worries me when you say that nothing is
Real and you shake and speak gibberish
While you spin on your heels
Join me and fight, we may surmount
This frenzied life of dullard schemes
The sweat drips even now and beats
My pale page, I am the scribe of a
Cosmic thought I cannot name and
I promise to serve it for good
Jak is a Brisbane based poet trying to make Christian mamas blush. His poetry has appeared in Glass magazine, ScratchThat, and Blue Bottle Journal.