Aueoi

I wrote this the day after seeing 'Antichrist', about 18 months ago, and read it at the Poet's Café in Reading that night. Let us say the applause was more 'Thank God he's finished!' than 'Encore!'. I publish it now as an appropriate beginning to Holy Week.

for Lars von Trier 

The maenad cuts Her clit with scissors, pulls 

blood from His prick. Tiresias nods and laughs 

at agony in woody places, full 

of nothing new. The gynocide is crafted 

by three beggars, and Satan’s church is nature. 

Grief is a Deer, her stillbirth hanging aft. 

Pain is a Fox that gnaws its belly – state 

of chaos. Despair’s a Crow that never ends 

until the maenads climb a lonely hill to rend