Poems by John W. Sexton
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Hard Graft
 
we summon penicillin
... playing solitaire
with slices of bread


take the plunge
you virgin sailors ... the jellyfish brides
open their skirts


a sorbet of souls
… even in hell
such luxury
 
cirrhosis in the curtains ...
a long night
at the ginger-beer house


hissing spitting morning …
all the drowned kitten souls
came down the river


stunning
in her dress of antler velvet
the angel of last breaths


the nine-headed lamb
didn't last the day ...
neither did the day


nightshade pies
selflessly slice themselves ...
death is the last democracy


would blow your mind ...
the warranty contract
on the time machine
 
hard graft …
a crate of tungsten vaginas
arrives at the Vatican
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Tin Soldier


The tin soldier was hollow as a bell;
which meant all the emptiness inside him
was his heart. Some, however, would discern
him heartless. My father’s step crushed the shell
of him one day and all his heart leaked out.
Through my tears for my flattened trooper
all I could see was the red silk flutter
of a blood breeze. I bit my lip: my mouth
discerned the soldier’s heart in everything.
Dad opened the lid of a heartless bin.
Its rancid blood poured us full of its stink.
Metal was not heartless, I realised.
But heart was whatever filled the inside.
Everything is the anything heart will ride.


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John W. Sexton is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent being Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009) and The Offspring of the Moon (Salmon Poetry, 2013). His sixth collection, Futures Pass, is forthcoming from Salmon in 2017. Two novels for children have been published by the O’Brien Press: The Johnny Coffin Diaries and Johnny Coffin School-Dazed, which have been translated into Italian and Serbian. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. He is a past nominee for The Hennessy Literary Award and his poem The Green Owl won the Listowel Poetry Prize 2007. Also in 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry. 

​Weblinks:
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http://salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=298&a=244
https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/tea-with-akhmatovas-cat-and-other-poems-by-john-sexton/
https://bobneilson.org/2013/03/21/sex-and-drugs-and-rock-n-roll-hold-the-drugs-side-order-of-poetry-the-john-w-sexton-interview/

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