The Karrada Emperor of Ice-cream

‘Mango, strawberry, apple pie –
On a cone, with chocolate on top’,
Were his last words
Before

His blood swirled through the strawberry
Like ice-cream sauce. On the floor
A Picasso
Made from flesh.

On the pavement a mother finds
One of his hands. Beneath rubble
His head plays hide
And seek.

The boy ‘could and should have done more’,
Says Piers Morgan, to root out the
Extremists who
Made him into ice-cream.

Yet inside black gold palaces
The root grows, the preachers are paid,
With swords dancing
To $110bn.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

— Sheamonspeare
http://facebook.com/sheamonspeare

This poem is dedicated to the victims of the Karrada district (Baghdad) bombing, which killed 27 civilians (as of recent reporting) as they visited a popular ice cream parlour after breaking their fast during Ramadhan.
Twitter thread on the incident: https://twitter.com/Hayder_alKhoei/status/869313880262103041
More info: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/baghdad-attack-suicide-bomb-isis-ramadan-iraq-ice-cream-karrada-dead-injured-latest-updates-a7762406.html

For Your Rubbish Bin

You are an absolute mess:
That crazy curly hair,
The baggy jumper,
Those ridiculous freckles,
Those earthquake eyes,
That beautiful hurricane mind.
I want to wrap that chaos in my arms,
Hold it tight till I feel every feeling
It has felt. Every tear, every ache,
Every thing it has known,
I want to know.

Why are you so special?
How can something broken be complete?
Why would, if I only had hours left,
Spend them staring at you?
Why do I see more light in your darkness
Than an unborn angel’s heart?
I could spend eternity opening
The strange doors of your soul,
Igniting its dark rooms,
Its virgin alleyways.

Your voice
Is like an art that can never
Be painted because there are no colours
Able to describe something so colourful;
I want to frame every sentence you speak,
Gaze into its sadness to heal my scars.

Your eyes
Speak more scripture than religion,
I see lost wars won,
I see gates of Babylon,
I see martyrs waving banners,
A thousand forgotten stories are in
Those eyes,
They sip my soul like a cheap drink,
My cup is emptied by every blue stare,
My heart is crucified by their silence;
A beautiful cold hell I want to be
Tortured by for eternity.

But don’t mistake my poetry
For love. I don’t love you.
Love is too simple of a word.

— Sheamonspeare
facebook.com/sheamonspeare
Gates of Babylon Berlin

Sonnet III Quills Dipped in Blood

No ask me not of ‘love’ for I would fain
Let poets dip their pluck’d quills in the blood
Of bleeding hearts and write sonnets of pain,
Let broken promises espouse the flood
Of salted tears in white gowns burnt; then ask
The dead romantic if his grave is warm,
You won thy widow’s tears and failed life’s task,
So deep in love and shallow in high form.
Alas, what then of thou, oft giving heart?
Thou know’st arrows but not the bow, and still
Mindless in thy wrong, restless in thy craft,
Thou feed’st on hunger which wilt never fill.
Let me not live to love or love to live;
A soul seeks what a heart can never give.

 

— Sheamonspeare
facebook.com/sheamonspeare

Pompeo Batoni - Time clips the wings of Cupid

santé-plumes-sang-cassées-pliées-identifier-reconnaître-comment-perroquets-psittacidés-oiseaux-animal-animaux-compagnie-animogen-0

Pieter Claesz- Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill

 

 

Sonnet II

You said that all men sleep but few men dream,
And earth was just a hand for me to shake;
Betwixt mine eyes thou wove unseen with seam,
And in this made far more than thou didst make.
The tree once glutton hath become bereft,
The roots once soaked in piety hath dried;
Alas, I wonder right, yet wander left,
Father, how can I live when thou hast died?
I’ll wait for twenty five of yonder day,
I’ll wait not for the promised blissful night;
The stars ignite when darkness maketh fray
And destiny beckons when it doth blight.
To him I owe the thought of heart and soul,
To him I owe on earth what be my role.

 

— Sheamonspeare

Sonnet II Father Son image by Nathalie Chaput

Sonnet II Mufasa Simba

Goldfish Eulogy

O vessel of stagnant dreams, 
Beating against the tide of forgotten years,
Flowing in opposite waves, yet in cyclical motion
Thou art tormented by contoured simplicity:
Thou start the journey of today at morrows end, 
And end tomorrow at yesteryears beginning.

 

What warmth? So fire like in disposition,
Once a burning tower of naked madness,
Now ’tis faded into mysterious fog,
Like an echo fighting the abyss of vacuum,
Constantly craving the drug of enlightenment 
Whilst transcending into downward spirals, 
Gesticulating in deafening stillness,
Waiting for the next dose of hope
From the cannula of desolation.

 

Thy death has come, but I refuse to weep,
Dear friend, the dream is dead, but I will sleep.

 
 
 
— Sheamonspeare
 
The Temptation of St. Anthony by Salvador Dalí
 
dream dark

Sonnet I

When thou didst smile was it true and fair?
Those silver lips are heavier than gold:
Thou carry more than heart could ever bear,
Or thousand ships on sea could ever hold.
O, never have I seen in metal form
A rose, with petal swords, in single strike,
Such ease, thy silver smile maketh warm
A mind, a heart, a soul; hell it be like.
Oft frivolous thy silver spent on men,
But lend me less than I can recompense;
For I will write with silver lining pen
A million words if thou give just a pence.
Lend me thy smile, lend it with no aim,
I swear our love will burn eternal flame.

–Sheamonspeare
The Rum Diary

The Wrong Way

Facing the wrong way on a train window
So the view is leaving me, not coming,
And it’s strange, not knowing what’s ahead,
What’s ahead is behind me.

Looking backwards through a train window
So I see a new world between every stop,
Yet moving landscapes look all the same
When looking backwards.

Facing the wrong way on a train window
So I sit still, waiting for my stop,
And as the world around me moves
I am reminded that it will
Not stop for me when I die,
The world will keep moving,
And this train will move with it

— Sheamonspeare

elderly-man-staring-out-window

Harvey Specter on train

^^click me

Beethoven and the Blind Girl

i.
They say, they say, but what use is saying
To those without seeing: comparing
To what can’t be compared.

Diamonds are stones, and lakes are sands
Compared to that which hangs; that portal
To the heavens in the night.

I play, I play, for piano keys
Are eyes to forest floors, but never
Have I walked on the moon.

Days are dreams, dreams are days,
Life taketh sight, death giveth eyes,
Sweet death show me the moon.

I pray, I pray, angel Gabriel will come
One day, sit beside me and play
A moonlight sonata.

ii.
Walking, walking, with no company,
Except my friend, is not dreary,
My friend the moon.

They say, they say, on such evening,
To the soul my friend gives healing,
A cold evening I walk.

Piano, Piano, I hear a sound,
So to it I follow, followed and found
A warm house and girl.

‘O angel! angel!’ she said screaming
‘Won’t you play that immortal beaming?
Play for me the moon.’

iii.
He played, he played, my heart open,
Soft notes gentle, soft and broken,
He flew me to the moon.

Flying, flying, I flew and wept,
Then on a crater my head rest,
I slept on the moon.

Words, words, words; words I cannot find,
Except that Beethoven, dear Beethoven,
No longer am I blind.

–Sheamonspeare

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Theatre 4: To Be or Not To Be

Live or die this man.

A scalpel:

Life dancing on fingers

Earth on my palm

Universe in my blood,

But, ventricular fibrillation.

Son talking to dead father,

Father kissing feet of dead son,

Wife crying.

 

Live or die this myocardium.

Hauntingly beautiful:

Chest opened, sternum sawed,

Ribs broken, pericardium stretched,

I see you now, beating, lub-dub,

My heart beats, lub-dub, you beat again,

Please, don’t stop.

We’ve met before,

On television or the dead you,

But not like this.

 

Three hours later chest is closed.

He lives.

Me a cardiac surgeon?

 

–Sheamonspeare

mitral_valve_repair

The Day Satan took the Jubilee Line to Work

The paintings on the walls have

Eyes, shifting from side to side.

People are art

So we play the guessing game.

Banker, dancer, doctor, teacher, student, psychopath, ASBO, Chatham, Chelsea, rich, poor, lesbian, gay, bi, straight, married, single, German, Spanish, Primark, Gucci, real, fake, plastic surgery?

But, we never ask,

Converse, or smile.

Don’t be absurd:

This is London, not Canada.

 

How different from

Cabin crews, horse carriages and desert camels.

Comrades, cowboys, fellow travellers and pilgrims

Against the wind, sun and rain.

 

Yet now underground,

Inside the belly of the beast,

So hot that beneath my feet

I can hear Lucifer singing

To Beelzebub of TFL:

Mankind is divided,

Manners are lacerated,

Chivalry they guillotined.

 

For we touch each other,

More than husband and wife,

Skin on skin, flesh on flesh, B.O. B.O.,

Your armpits on my face

And yet, I don’t even know your name.

No hello, good morning or hey:

Afterall, this is London, not Canada.

 

–Sheamonspeare

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