Cold turkey in a clinic with no name, 2000 (IP)

And who was Steiner anyway -
his face is everywhere yet
I have no sense of life before
him, before you and your smile.

My brain a psychedelic fairground
dodgem-ride of car crash moments
fast-tracked re-wound re-lived;
nerve endings prickling with fear as

the painted Lady Madonna confronts
me, surreal and Dali-esque, eyes
sliding off her face, her
anthroposophical lap-child's mouth

a gaping black oval, emitting a silent
scream as giant insects crawl through
crumbling walls of yellow tablets and
my desperate tongue seeks to

capture the crumbs of my addiction...
Beneath my carapace an alien
body lies rigid, after the killer-healer
Anthropos has pummelled the life out

of me, leaving me to die, praying to the
the framed Madonna for it all to
end; there is no fun in this place, no
escape, for I am paralysed - unable

to move; the room spins, judders to a
halt as Steiner, Madonna, change
places - the baby, where is the baby -
no more haemorraging your dead

foetuses. Now his eyes are your eyes,
his smile reminds me of yours - you
are one and the same - Steiner has
got me....after it all began and

ended - right here right now with you,
without you, for ever and ever......
Amen