INDECENCY

 

                                                         But that was just it, the trouble,
       Or part of the trouble anyway, that had made Stew stall
       Work on his comicbook: he wasn’t afraid to depict
       The goriest crimes of war and murder and rape that lurked
       Around every corner of his society and times,
       Behind and under every smile a mile wide on billboards
       (They selling pills, we paying bills)

                                                ~

        Drawing a raw vengeful virago kicking some weird-
        Looking lowlife to death for his annoying (to put it
        Mildly) habit of knifing sleeping strangers in the gut
        – And planting evidence to make those wild crimes seem the work
        Of teenagers who had no way to prove their innocence –  
        Was easier for Stew than making images of love-
        Making

                                                  *

                                                                   Furthermore, which one
       Of his Amazons would represent Evil?, Duelle or
       Queen Mona, that Marnie-esque liar in an office-suit?

                                                  ~

          APT employed cuter whores than Radica but they were all,
       Stew felt, alike at bottom.   Then why had she captured more
       Of his imagination than the rest?    He couldn’t say,
       Stew could not utter, son of repression’s bitch of silence,
       Itching to break its glass cage with bricks of Art:   he wanted,
       But his neck was red with fear of being seen to want, that
       – A fear he couldn’t overcome, since he didn’t know how
       To name it and so tame it.     

        (from *fatima solagua arterra’s nudes* by Brian Chan, 2015)