CHRISTOPHER BARNES - POEMS

Christopher Barnes’ first collection LOVEBITES is published by Chanticleer.  Each year he reads at Poetry Scotland’s Callender Poetry Weekend.  He also writes art criticism which has been published in Peel and Combustus magazines.

Festival

​Angels of tat
Blink at our guru an hour.
Recklessness in loose tongues
Is curtailed.
Insight duties no verve
Nor sermons.
A junk-grimed spoon
Feigns lustre by the candle.

​Cloud-Climbing

​Luridly chrome-tint
The speedboat-driving octopus
Is kiss-blown on the forehead
By each tragedian
In our guru’s aura.
 
We’ve unbuilt the mind’s shadows,
Dizzy from hearkening oversouls –
Gunk
On the engine of the universe.

​Tonguing Spittle

​Our guru ticktacks eyes
In the Pete Burns doll.
Run-out-of-time sundown.
I airscape him
Fluttering with gopis.
We blubber, mystify,
Culting for juju lips
To halo the sky.

Imaginary Rain

​The mushroom cloud bomb
Engravened with nylon fuzz,
Roosts on his aquarium.
Our guru’s rigor
Gambles by humouring senses.
We backlog anxiety
For peace.

Stilling Bacchus

​Our guru, thresholding from wine bars,
Slurs his doodads inducing cheer.
That shoplifted My Little Pony,
Raging to be eyeballed,
Crash dives off a pizza box.
 
Hopelessness owns my physical body
Reshaped by nous.