1. Richard Livermore

The future that

you have in mind

is one you will

have left behind

when it arrives.

News from Nowhere. Richard Livermore

And the giraffe planted an ear in the corn

As a token of love for Nijinsky, the fawn,

Who danced in the ear like a creature possessed.

And it came to pass there came from the West

Metallic battalions. The grazing gazelle

Jerked up its head at these neighbours from hell

As the matriarch of the elephant herd

Trumpeted quiet to the eloquent bird

Till all you could hear in the shimmering heat

Was the barking of orders and crunching of feet

The droning of engines high in the air

And, back on the ground, a cry of despair.

Two Loves. Richard Livermore

Two loves had I once.
When both of them sucked
on my nipples together
I was the blossoming

mother of twins, one of them
fucked me I was a city
entered by armies, decked out
with kisses and flowers.

And they tell me
the World disapproves
of inverted desires.

It prefers its mothers
to nurture real armies
to enter real cities.

EPITAPH FOR THE LATE BOURGEOISIE. Richard Livermore

circa: the day after tomorrow
if only you’d known
life beyond carpets
and windows.
or was it your fate

to sentence yourself
to the dot of an i
with a full
stop ahead at the garden?

and that of the over-
looked in the street,
the monster
that stalked the world

you neglected, eager
to slake its thirst
with your blood
to never desist

from its beastly behaviour
until you’d acknowledged
your creature
and saviour?