‘Twas the night before Hipmas, when all through the haus.
Not a scenester was stirring, not even to grouse.

Plaid stockings were draped off the vintage arm chair
Left to appease St. Atticus should he dreaded appear.

My artist roommate was all snug in her bed
With but half her dyed hair shaved off of her head.

And I in my raybans and pressed skinny jeans,
Listened to Bon Iver and the new Velveteens

When from the shared garden, there came such a racket.
Dashing out, I grabbed my Member’s only jacket.

I trampled organic herbs locally sourced
Thrashing our prized orchids, I stumbled and cursed

Tattoo shops and dive bar signs brightened the night
Our gentrification had cured urban blight!

And what did my pot-addled brain did perceive
But a crusty old punk with arms inked in full sleeve

Armed with a bat and a heart of animus
He could only be the mad St Atticus.

From the hells of counter culture past, he came
Whistling and yelling and calling us vile names

“Oi, Dipshit. Oi, hipster. I am coming for you.”
“You pussies. You posers. Your time is through.”

Your reprinted vinyls! Your trendy t-shirts
You’re such corporate phonies. So fake it hurts!"

Singing Sex Pistols, he kicked in the door
And dumped our record collection onto the floor

Out onto the yard, our possessions they flew
As he smashed up our flat and our walls he kicked through

And then in a cursing, I heard on the roof
A stomping and clomping of his angry boots

We hid beneath our bed and made nary a sound
We might escape alive if we went unfound

He crashed through the window and crouched like a panther
For our crimes against punk, he demanded an answer.

From dressers, he dumped all our clothes on the floor
He emptied our bookcases of post modernist lore

He unzipped his fly and pulled out his prick
His piss smelt of gasoline as emptied his dick

He smiled and his pierced mouth drew up like a bow
And above ripped collar his tattoos did show

From his pocket, he produced a zippo lighter
He struck the wheel and the wick’s flame grew brighter

Beneath the bed frame, my roommate and I yelped
In our hidden terror, it just could not be helped.

With a wink of his eye and a pull of his ears
he proceeded to realize all of our fears.

He spoke a not a word as he ignited the pyre
His satanic piss set our light reading afire

Post modernist writings went up into smoke
The fumes of beat poetry making us choke.

He blew a snot rocket out onto the floor
And gave us the finger as he went outdoors

To the next house, he continued his quest
And he broke all the furniture our neighbors liked best

And I heard him shout, as he ripped prints off the walls
“Merry Christmas, you assholes, now, suck my balls.”

I watched her brilliance
as she flashed amidst heaven -
midair for effect.

She scorched a Sakura blossom.
The pink petal drifted on a hot wind
and then slowly curled
edges blackening like burnt paper.
I smelled a cherry scent
tinged with an aroma of vaporised flesh -
her perfume.

The shadows grew real,
as she made them elongate.
Their names etched in stone.

Only I could survive her.
Years of war had lined me
with lead and concrete.
Like some mad Oppenheimer,
changing history for the sake of curiosity,
I had blinded myself with my slated glasses.

I stood transfigured
With heaped ashes of spent lives
Swirling as she came.

I lie on the bathroom floor.
I wonder, “What are those marks on the ceiling?”
Shit? Or blood?

Then, I start to think about Christ.
And a forensic analysis by the Pharisees.
And how the bible mentions how he bled.
And how on the crucifix, he always has a loin cloth on.
How dead people tend to shit themselves.
I wonder, “What’s that running down his leg?”

I turn my gaze to the space behind the toilet.
I discover, “That’s where my wedding ring went.”

When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of local colours.
That’s when I step out of my hovel,
Pull my cap down ov’r my eyes,
And go drink,
at a bar,
Run by a gay man
Who loathes me.

Though he sneers when he slams down my drink,
And abruptly adjourns our conversations,
Frequently forgets my orders,
and sighs smoke in my face,
He’s the only publican
in this fucking town
Who can make a proper cocktail.

He uses a glass screwed into a shaker,
The right bourbon and the sweetest vermouth,
With a symmetrical sliver of lemon
Twisted and seared
Mimicking the drinker and the maker.
He decants into a fancy glass
and garnishes with a gored cherry.

Outside, away from his jeering eye,
I sip my drink and watch the regulars.
I study the indigenous and destitute
As they socialise on a bench
They always welcome me,
Like they don’t know me
And like we are the oldest friends.

A native, smelling of glue, has his face tattooed.
That’s only acceptable on an island
Equally worshipping and scared of its heritage.
He interposes himself on my observation.
And frankly asks for a cigarette.
When I refuse, he doesn’t falter.
He just interrogates me about my day.

The off-duty prostitute surprises me,
she’s not on her usual corner.
Instead, she spreads herself on the warm bench
With her sad face and melted features,
Her missing teeth and blue bark,
She quotes Camus
To her compatriots.

When they leave,
The bartender emerges with a pot of boiling water.
He possessively scalds the public bench they dared to sit on.
Disinfecting their presence from his upscale atmosphere.
He’s an expatriated Castro Fag from the Frisco Bay.
Battle hardened by the local leather scene
Though he hasn’t lost his accent.
He’s as jaded as the stone Moko,
Set in dirty pavement stone.
Strode by prostitutes and artists alike.

When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of the local colours.
That’s when I step into the light
Burn away my undeveloped privacy
I merge with the other colours,
Become refracted and reflected,
Just another dying hue.

Her mouth touched him
like a whiskey’s kiss.
The cool brush of a ringing rim.
A moment’s anticipation
her warmest touch of amber
on his dry cracked lips.

Then, she burned.
Oh, how she singed and sang.
She warmed his cold lesions.
She scorched his grand eloquence.
She doused his innards in fire.

She had been Roosevelt’s courage,
When he departed his wife’s bedside.
She had inspired iconographic hangings,
When the muse’s rope snapped short.
She had given the suitor succor,
As he pondered where the ring went wrong.

Now, he kissed her.
Then, he drank her.
Always, he needed her
Whiskey kiss.

Of course, it does. Of course, it does. The chat bot waxes racist and the algorithm facist. Of course, it does. Of coures, it does. Foucault’s pendilum tilted So, we do. So, we do. We build our god’s image on me and you. We made our god and it turned out stupid. Of course, we did. Of course we did. We took our eye’s off the ground And now it’s fascist all the way down.

Holy House I awake alone The bed in my monastic cell is too big. Big enough for two But too small to contain my spirit. A divine presence fills me with sunlight Filtered through a picture window Overlooking lands I never notice On lives too accustomed. Familiar faces with names unknown Conducting their morning rites Something uses the sun to speak Trying to reach me and speak. It speaks words out of phase