Mad Heart

She said that I was mad
though I knew it.
It wasn’t nice to hear it
but I was mad
about her
and if she knew it
I doubt if she could bear it.
So I’ll keep
My madness to myself.
So dance mad heart dance,
And let my sleeve wear it.

- George Harding

(added 10.23.08)

Blank Screen

At least with the blank page
You had control
You could ignore it
Crumble it up
Or strangle it.

But this Putin screen
It breathes
And makes other weird noises
And watches you
Spies on you.

It is hard to even belch
It may hear you
You’d nearly apologise
Even without defacing it
With babble.

And it never blinks
Just stares you to death
“what is it that you want
Gawping at me like that
Like a sex maniac”?

Yeah. Right.
But what would happen
If I fell asleep
With you on top
Of my lap?

- George Harding

(added 08.02.08)

Damn Alzheimers

We should have seen the signs,
the odd socks
the frayed shirt collar
unsuited
to one so immaculate.
Once you held your head
in your hands for an age
and whispered to yourself
“I am losing my mind”.
We thought you were only
‘looking for notice’
As your bete noir suggested.
It is sad we two did not talk more.
God knows when the damn silted.
The time you went next door ( the only time )
to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s
in your pyjamas,
she thinking you were in the pantomime.
And the gobbedly gook,
people assuming you a latent comic.
God damn, we could still have talked
I remember the first ‘footer’ you bought me
all leather and laces
and kicked to death by my new friends,
for a short time the envy of the gang.
You probably hoping I would be the next
Stanley Matthews.
Thirty years later
You were the one doing the dribbling,
on your bib,
in your nappy,
strapped in
to your wheelchair
and me a stranger.

- George Harding

(added 08.02.08)

Paedpophile

May you burn at the stake of tender sticks
wafted slightly by a still furious breeze
very slowly consuming your feet and calves
your screaming loud before it hits the knees.

The tender child screamed before those flames
the heart is dying but the rage is raging
young hearts are young, but young in names
and the young names are ageing, ageing, ageing.

And now the flames creep slowly towards the groin
caress your trembling thighs like a vipers tongue
not much for the old dead to be dying
but the dying ones to be the young.

Little boy, your magic eyes aglowing
upon your baby sisters’ curls and smiles
you see nothing but her beauty, and unknowing
something watches. Blood flows upon the tiles.

May your teeth grind to mulch when the flames
roast your testicles like chestnuts upon a London street
may you be sodomised by the vilest sodomites roaming
Satan’s corridors with hooves upon their feet.

In your hell, eternity is too short a time
and all the time you have is worth having
while here on earth you leave behind your crime
of the undead. They are left to go on living.

- George Harding

(added 08.02.08)