Steve Mann

sunday nineteen
  homo homini lupus – Plautus (184 BC)   

ugly faces grin their nicest wretchedness
‘will she favour me’ they think as with
maudlin haste they plunge their destiny’s
corona, eased open with defiant
negligence, not clandestinely, for all
parcels envelope to absenteeism as
cardiac momentums transcend the silver
cord, ‘not in my lifetime’ they feel, as reversing
obsequisness – bonne fide shitstream
jaws – salivates for Britain whilst they
constipate lipsticks extruding projectile, nah
nah sirens draw them into returning weirdness
poltroons when coruscating interns blag
skeptic’s atheistic ascetics, ‘no more, no
more’ they howl ‘let them die’

Steve Mann © 2009

Uncle Herod’s Best

Vincennes’ unwitting film extras
Airbus A300’s innocents
July’s 290 pilgrims
martyred blood cries out

Uncle Herod’s stars give stripes

they know in Tehran
they know in Frankfurt
they know in Damascus
the “Lockerbie boys" of Beirut

Uncle Herod’s stars give stripes

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi
loyal kinsman of the Colonel
his cancerous prostate allay
reunites familial severance

Uncle Herod’s stars give stripes

Steve Mann © 2009