The dead.
On conveyor belts.
Prayers in the form of TV static.
The preacher excommunicates the lovers.
Killing sprees make good movies.
Bible belt guns and fistings.
A nude corpse nourishes the beak of a raven.
This night parades death.
The night's tooth gnaws the cold.
Filming suicides on the 8mms—
Peggy's body before the sign that killed her;
Contorted, dishevelled, rotting on the gums
Of scavengers, the suicide deity, in the throat
Of dreams, hopes and glamour,
"The Hollywood Sign Girl" leapt
And the final reel combusts
Into flames so satanic.
Deus Ex Machina:
This system makes death corporate.
Pin-ups and centrefolds of rigor mortis,
The multiple fractures of her pelvis—
The shape of this land.
Broken. Hurt.
Wasted.
Beautiful girl scarred under the plastic.
Under the stars.
I gave birth to a gun today.
It's in an incubator.
It can't breathe.
It vomits hard things.
It kills.
But
I love it,
Naturally
And intrinsically
Like every mother should.
These poems are selections from Craig Podmore's upcoming Oneiros Book, Pornocopia.