All poems copyright © to Rob Kennedy and all artworks copyright © to the respective artists, Angelo Madrid and Tanya Rossi.

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Two Thousand Years Before - Two Thousand Years After


Dragging a long red robe 
Two Thousand Years Before - Two Thousand Years After
Angelo Madrid

drowning in days of blood.

Ages ago she died.

A prisoner of time
revelled in distant stars.

Falling back
through my arms.

Travelling time
Cycles of death, rising.

Thousands screamed the message.

Plagues of rats
crawled across the landscape.

Be warned, there was no faith.

Blue light tortures
the dead.

Temptations promised
like soft necks.

Drums, tapping
signalling to the suffering.

Death marches closer.

Promised, imprisoned
in the sunlight.

The single living soul
suicides.

There are bodies
there is disease
that drinks the soul.

Two thousand years before
she died

In a river that flowed
of heart break.

Two thousand years after
time and whispers
tempt the mortal.

Still, she waits to be touched.


Rob Kennedy




The Street of Tears

Sao Paulo’s streets drip with tears. 
Drugs are blood, money is a god
with heroin and sex for sale.
 
I am the face of humanity
everyone denies
I'm seventeen.
 
There is no pain. Everything hurts.
Individual abuse means nothing.
 
Crime, contamination, cruelty
chemicals, castration, churches
catholics, christ, christianity
crucification.
 
In the favelas, brothers and sisters die
one every six hours.
 
The fucking dogs bite at my flesh
when I sleep.
They lap up the blood of the dying
and the dead.
 
Corruption, the cops lick it up
then suck it in
as though they
were never young.
 
I’d hang from this cell window
if I could. The only escape,
from the street of tears.


Poem Rob Kennedy, art Angelo Madrid



Space Fried Blue Jeans

Your hair hit me.
Ben Folds lost his T shirt again.
Go on catch me.
A pillow burst, feathers in the wine.
 
Sitting on you, the only way. Stop biting me! Wine's spilling.
You’re no brick.
That's the phone,  Ha got you, fell for it
Now my pillows split.
 
Racing for the door, breathing in
Switching off the mobile
No not the cake, I’m hungry/
Here eat it/yuk.…..
 
I love you/Prove it/how?
Be my slave/I already am. Not good enough. Show me/
See your blood in my veins.
 
Not enough, Sing me.
Well what/ My Woman From Tokyo?
You Seventies nerd/kiss my jocks/Drop em/pay me/I love you too.
 
Yeah show me/this body is yours/
I’ve seen bodies before/whose?
My dad's/that’s it, it’s war/stop licking me.
Now I have to shower/me too/I’m first/no, together.
 
Pass the soap/why? I’ve got to wash you off me
Don’t, don’t ever, here hold me like this, Yeah/
We’ll drown/yes please, as long as its with you/
The waters getting cold/kiss me, kiss me.
 
OK where are they/
where's what? you know!
Oh, in the wash/no they're not!
Where are they? I gave them away/I know you didn’t! You love me in them/Well only a lot/so? Third drawer.
Ah, my space fried blue jeans.
Lets not go, open the red?


Rob Kennedy




                                            Tanya Rossi
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



The Hill of the Creeping Shadow


I lay down
on the cracks in the ground
beside the hill
of the creeping shadow.
 
This vast red wasteland
is empty        of all connections.
 
The barren
dead, dried up earth
crumbles under my feet.
 
Did life once bloom here?
 
The wind whips up the dust into my lungs.
 
Dirt turns to mud
it sticks to every hair.
 
The sun burns down
on the living
on the dead past.
 
An echo claps its sound
across the sky.
 
Out here
is where I'll die.
 
I lay down
on the cracks in the ground
beside the hill
of the creeping shadow.


Rob Kennedy
Tanya Rossi
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




Road Zero


Through the swamp 
Road Zero
Angelo Madrid
layer upon layer

The fine hairs of men
meshed with the blood and bone.

Pounded, down, the ground
graves sweat out history.

Flowers form a bridge
grown on human remains.

Night's echo the loss
sounding out, screamed and condemned.

Marched, punished men,
created road zero.

A prison cell twelve feet wide
three-thousand live long.

Through the interior of pain
blistered hands reach out.

Tortured tired souls
exhaust their final breath.

As road zero goes on
metering death.


Rob Kennedy




Paid in Full
In night time dreams, throughout a crimson mist, she dances before me.

A Sitar and Tabla, melt through my mind
Crotales chime to the kissing of her lips.

Her fragrant body falls before me
sliding, creeping slowly, seducing me.

Veils of pleasure fall away, she consumes my spirit with the touch of her hand.

Like cashmere she unfolds before me
a sound she whispers in my ear.
Fifty dollars more mister?

P.I.F.

I lay her breasts on my eyes.

Rob Kennedy



    Tanya Rossi 
 
            



The Kissing Mirror

I kissed myself in the mirror
I wanted it to last 

Cast upon the laminated glass
was the stain of your lipstick

Your hands reached out from within
crushing my breath

I shattered the glass, fracturing my face
cracked pieces of reflection stared back

Blood dripped between the serrated sections, over the stain of your lipstick

Rob Kennedy











The Kissing Mirror
Angelo Madrid




Embrace the Demon


A tear drop timer
marks the sky.
 
The creature towers the hill
angles scream.
 
Lights drip to the red.
 
Lives devoured in the jaws
of the monster.
 
Glass blood cuts open
souls are melted.
 
Forms fused, crosslinked
this earth cracked wide.
 
The tear drop timer
vaporised.
 
All things dissolve
lives fall over.
 
I embrace the demon.

Robert Kennedy




Angelo Madrid







The Disease



I feel it on my ankles, where they crossed yours.
 
It’s on my stomach, on my arms
in my sleep.
 
It’s in my mind, in my bed
red, white and violent against me.
 
It crawls over my body
I feel it swell.
 
My skin creeps, it flakes away
the dried and crusting tissues.
 
My genitals are red and inflamed
my thoughts and mind also.
 
Where our fingers intertwined
it lives and breeds.
 
I am the disease
defatted by time and corruption.
 
Kiss me before you go
I need more.

Robert Kennedy


Angelo Madrid








Dark Room

Shadows disappear into an empty chair
darkness shines on loneliness there
moonlight floods the floor
history screams at me
the air stands still
time grows old
there is no
release

dark room




The Crosshatch Test

S HATCH TEST
I'll carve my blade
four times down
four times, across your face.
 
I'll stick my love
over your skin
 
then rip it off
to see what holds.
 
10%, 25%, 75%, or 100
 
It tore away
like bandage on a wound.
 
I held it in my hand
everything removed.
 
100% transfer.

Rob Kennedy

The crosshatch test
Angelo Madrid
 Robert Kennedy
Angelo Madrid
 
 

Crash Out




Death

it's loaded, positioned, taking aim
fired straight towards me
 
Child like with no known fear
it strikes

 
An explosion of ecstatic pain
cuts through me
 
I'm burning cold
my feet thrown from the ground
 
My eyes explode
blood splashes on my lips
 
Breath fades
my daughter holds my hand
 
I am dead.

Robert Kennedy



Crash out
Angelo Madrid



The Clasp


I belong to the gallop
the clasp
Art - Tanya Rossi

to the tearing up of earth
to the footprints     removed.

I belong to the mist, 
the cold, a long distance shout, a victim, with my name of her.

I belong to the days, and
the dreams that come
in the night.

I belong to the dance of folk through history, to songs about turnips and children.

I belong to the hands
that reach out, and
clasp onto mine.

Rob Kennedy






Bread


Death leaned up against me

offered the recipe
the ingredients
for the staff of life.

I reached out
they dissolved in my hands.

I heard my voice
whispering
let me live
I want to live.

I bled the words
into a new world
where the dust
waits.

I killed myself
in a clean white dream
it was painless
it smelled like bread.

Rob Kennedy 




          

Brain Sucking Brains


Brain sucking brains
             Angelo Madrid

I can’t explain
the brain sucking brains.
There're here, in you
in me, there're near.
 
First it's one
two.
Soon its me
you.
 
Brain sucking brains
are not alone
they live out there
and in your home.
 
Guns and spears
cannot kill them
they're inside your mind
its there you will them.
 
They bleed your life
until you die
it doesn’t matter
how hard you try.
 
Their thoughts
have materialised
they're looking at you
they're in my eyes.
 
Brain sucking brains
have cut the line
they're coming fast
we're out of time.
 
There’s brain sucking brains
sucking brains
sucking brains
sucking brains

Rob Kennedy

 
      

20Th Century Burn Out

Drink upon drink, drunk after drunk
hit upon hit, fix after fix.
Burn out.
 
Feel me, squeeze me, breathe me.
Smashed upon the rocks, spewing over the bridge sharing the same room, waiting for dawn.
 
Dancing madly to the sounds
loving no one
falling up then down
20Th century burn out bound.
 
Punch me hard and fast, make me remember.
Walk the streets in the rain
see the faces, feel the pain.
 
Live in a small town, die in a small room.
I know the penalty, I invented it
the cause is money and I want it.
 
Suck it in, this last cigarette.
Arrange a meeting for the first time
forget memory      we’re the burnt out kind.
 
Wait until tomorrow, pay the debt.
Walk with a friend. Live
and regret the moist earth
where ashes grow.
 
Tomorrow’s dead, I can’t go back.
Where ever, falling up or down, I’m just
20Th century burn out bound.

Rob Kennedy
 

Angelo Madrid