Sex and Murder Magazine

By David McLean

the sky stands over us a discontented
lover intent on murder by cleansing
away the sustaining dirt with sun
and wind and rain, like eyes
maintain a subtle pretense
of life until it is time
to stand erect like soldiers
in our graves again. the gods
of the dead and their zombie
armies are baying for all this flesh
made profound and dignified
by sex and insanity,
the meat is rising like a demon
dreaming, the empty skull
becomes a shield to ward off history
and its sexless ecstasy, murderous
hordes of boring words, cleansing water
in hospital wards and torture-
houses. here are empty worlds
and the fundamental effeminacy
of memory that does not hunt
but gathers and protects,
not a masculine future project
making misery and death,
the self-engendering self