I am a hero
A hero with
His jaw removed
By wild dogs
In shakes of head
To glasses in bed
11/1 and still
Throwing it all out
A right to be alone
In violent dreams
That stir bodies lit with anger
What matters
In an ugly world
Where loose ties
Strike at lies
That spread like disease
In eleven minds?
Tenacious antagonist
Demonized decider
White shirt creased like a crazy parachute
As his spit hits wood
And rain spatters glass
Getting to the point
Casualty of causality
Cutting the chain in
Negative utterance
Tonic un-fresh
In stale smoke
And office stench
Never possible because
You can walk how you like
You can measure
And refold the facts over and over
Sweat glistens on furrowed brows
Shiny volcanic dust
All over the fucking table
And split by a
Thebes double dagger
Affecting eyes, truth
And evident pride
Yet no tranquility
As strong threads arm the bone
Astray ash tray pining
Problems solved by shouting
Keen emblems
Attributed to killer
Touched and moving between sharp point switch
Discernment
Seeking ratios to
A complex entity
Under dry lights
Searching for compassion
Leaning on a precipice and swaying in the breeze
While fans burn and whirl
Check square shirts swirl
Arm around raven son
Black brick wall
Old with mould
And rotten kids
Tearing up the photograph
Fist tight and full of sand
Sore wet eyes
Dampen tight cuffs
A dogged leather pouch reveals
Memory receding
And dipping to evade
A lousy bunch of bleeding hearts
Employ a preacher tactic
As fingers drop quarters in a box
To appease gulping
Desires of a golden boy
Aspect framed in affection image
Expel the evidence
To heal the split
Despised ground that fixes
An infantile dependant
To objects of fantasy
Emotionally distraught
Stubborn bastard
A Father with a fierce temper
And alleged streaks of sadism
Peppering phony deals
While lip curls to left
Hook-line rubbing neck
With tongue between the teeth
Guilty
idiot
Twisting and turning
Head bowed
Re-sealing the wallet
Help
As tics grow louder
And air gets hotter
Spontaneous rash of heat
Due to explode
Outward and onward
Yellow sparks
Repeated
In sharpening of knives
Eyes like Ed exposed and broken
Black and empty
Unblinking bad love
Temple veins bulge
Tourniquet tight
Pulsing slightly
In long seconds
That turn to dust
And quiver
On the end of cigarette
And vanish in smoke
Surface circuits
Of self-destruction
A strange kind of therapy
An oedipal way to see
Actions and words
Knowing shaved skin
Stained in
Bull head ritual
Sweet seizure
remaining unnamed as a
Hopeless master of nothing
In vertigo of sadness
Mark Greenwood is a performance artist and writer. He has presented work across the U.K, Europe and the United States as well as curating the RED APE; a performance platform dedicated to the preservation and legacy of provincial performance art practice in the U.K. He is currently working with Mercy on our 2011-12 Overlap programme.