Christian Ward

Rebirth In The Age Of ID Cards

I have been condensed,
boiled down to less
than zero, shoved through
tubes, dropped down

onto petri dishes fed
to machines with hungry
mouths. Woke in a garden
where the trees are made

of 1’s and 0’s, apples,
from pissed-on manifestos.
I walk, think, wank, shit
and sleep. I hear scratching

when I dream, find new
objects in the morning:
credit cards and passports
with a name I don’t recognise.

Sometimes I like to dance:
my hands will leap up
and my body will fly through
the air. Perhaps I will soar,

see the hands that mould,
that give me inoffensive
scenery instead of life,
bloody and raw like hands
cut with smashed glass.

Christian Ward © 2009

Anthem for Obedient Youth

With no offence to the obedient
youth, I would like to rip off
their generic faces and turn the
knobs of an etch-a-sketch

to produce some variety that will
throb in the electric undercurrent
of our society. How I would love
to pull off their hooped earrings,

hoodies, tracksuits, fashionable
crops, retro glasses and everything
Hoxton-esque. How I would love
to strip them bare and let them

redesign every inch of their pathetic
selves. And burn, burn the media
priests that dominate the theatres
of their heads with pointless shit

and spoonfeeds them a heroin
of gossip and noise to ensure
subservience. Then I would let them
walk through the streets and watch
them tear it down, tear it all fucking
down.

And it will be beautiful,
oh so fucking beautiful, my friends.

The Conservative Poets

Their words are hollow,
trite. Snatched from Marie Claire,
Cosmopolitan. Who gives
a fuck about whether an avocado
gets you fat, or a man changing the oil
in your car. Held up to the light,
their words are blank; unlike the ones
labelled 'other' or 'underground'.
Theirs is like the lump found on an x-ray:
hungry, raw, growing.

Christian Ward © 2009