Christopher Barnes

Lying Figure With Hypodermic Syringe


George Dyer soars the trapeze
Urging the jaws of death
As Bacon swills a loving cup
In vintage Groucho Club gloom.

Bacon’s is a fubsy physiognomy, indissoluble skin,
Doubtfully green eyes transitory with sparkles,
A brickie’s hands, set square fingers.

He is the butch queen.
With a small-framed stutter talking of after-image,
Shaping from a lucid free-for-all (a tangible lisp)
The diktat of form will pitch an arrow
And in the gas of underdone afternoons
The compressing of vertigos.

Dyer he almost loved,
Cowering under the blister of his fuming fag-end;
The lowdown on charity is grimacing and gnashing.

In the billing and cooing of bloat,
Knuckles of paint, flashbacks of being
Buggered mischievously;
The reasoned chaos of the senses
Seesawing in the hips of stable boys.