The Man at the Bite of his Needle
Will Become Pope

by Christopher Barnes

                                      He’s elixired
his umbilicus mass already, is poised
to spur, to make him scream,
then just a trickle of cardinal blood.
 
When next they meet there’s a new clutch
of gold rings, the Pater has a yen
for a string through the nipples,
and if there’s enough shekels left
perhaps another stud
on the gurgle of his tongue.
 
The martyrdom of piercing is exquisite,
a tizzy to die for
and these profane disciplines

will scourge his sinful heart.

The New Chef

by Christopher Barnes

Cabbage is a tinge she whacks
with the bulk-bodied chopper
-                    we gulp down supper.

The Palaeolithics

by Christopher Barnes

They’ve been dreaming again.
Animals of the hunt
bled onto the dried-skin walls,
cold-breathed caves.
 
First impression, finger marks.
Liquefaction, ores becoming brittle.
 
Fixity for a moment in time,
an eon of small buffets, grit.
 
These fierce beasts charge their wool
spiking across scapes of overlap,
 
where the bogeyman waits
in the darkest part of dark.
 
In Altamira the Hall of Bulls
shivers on the peripheral
 
self-sealing circle of night –
hairy, goosebumped,