Jeremy Luke Hill
Behind the Eyes
Bloom behind the eyes – hot pistils
of plumaged, magnificent pain;
eye-stained feathers of peacocks
keeping surveillance on all our
sorrows; tears tie-dyed concentric.
Proof to codeine, this kind is cast
out only by prayer and fasting
from all but locusts and honey
in the comb, best tasted torn fresh
from carcassed lions. No prescription
necessary, but seldom carried
by pharmacies. Side effects
include blood on your hands, sudden
clarity of moral vision,
an acceptance of kaleidoscoped
colour as the nature of hurt.
Believes
He stacked the odds in God’s favour,
as if omnipotence needed to fudge
the numbers, stuff the ballot box
at debates on abortion, climate change,
and evolution. He preached fire to the choir,
never noticed when the pews puppeted
behind him or when the choir-box got propped
with manikins. The offering plate still passed
like a buck. Mouths still tongued a wafer-thin
forgiveness. Votes still enfranchised fraud
and misogyny in the cause of Christ.
So what if the flock wore sheep’s clothing
like uniforms, if the redeemed to life
were exhumed like corpses, trussed in Sunday
trousers and Easter hats, rotting and ghastly
in the congregation of the righteous.
So what if any God worth half the name
would whip them from their temples given
half the chance. Belief only invites
hypocrisy if you stop believing.
Biblianthropophage
To read is to shiver down spines
not our own, to crack and gnaw
them open with cannibal teeth.
The book, a marrow-bone, sweet
like a scroll on the tongue, bitter
like long-pig in the belly –
honeycomb and ash – makes its word
our flesh. We chew its fat. We form
its indices in our bodies,
a cellular catalogue of text
incarnate, become what we eat,
transfiguring our scripture — substance into false sacraments,
the sin of which is mortal,
the damnation of which — bell,
book, and candle — is absolute.
Inarticulate
He panted out ten kilometre’s run
and a stifled lifetime’s rabid rage
onto my front walk, lolled his tongue along
the canine consonants of his curses,
the first words he’d disinterred between us
since he buried the bones of our friendship
shallow, fodder for future appetites,
clawed up, gnawed down, worried by doggéd teeth,
and vomited on the sidewalk steps
as spatter for his feet when he returned
to nose its disgorged hatreds and howl –
all animal and inarticulate.
Habit
There are no cures for Botox
or Viagra. Their conditions
are permanent. Ativan too,
and Orlistat. No going back
once you realize how limp-dicked
and crow-footed you really are.
Dope may cover your multitude
of sins, but nothing can cover
the dope that sins need covering.
So pop those pills like there’s a choice
anymore. Needle your faces
like you can quit the poison prick
any time you want, once you’ve kicked
the habit of being human.
–