this journey

this is a journey to the start
of night, where psychosis grows
whole.

it is a sleeping eye,
wakeful all day because of gravel
being amphetamine pain;

for days are sun like a tooth
aching, slicing ribbons
flesh and heaven.

the ache is a slow burn
exquisite, the throbbing flesh
penetrating the self;

and here we are dead men.
in this world much murder
is seldom inadvertent

exactly. the dogs
seem to be angry,
but are biting for fun

and hatred. the sun
has gone, knowing
he was not wanted.

it is evening
and death is waiting –
no body waits naked

David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in a large lake called Mälaren, very near to Stockholm, with woman, cats, and a couple of large black and tan dogs. He has a BA in history from Balliol, Oxford, and an MA in philosophy, taken much later and much more seriously studied for, from Stockholm. Up-to-date details of well over a thousand poems in various zines over the last three years or so and several available books and chapbooks, including three print full-lengths, a few print chapbooks, and a free electronic chapbook, are at his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com.