i. Rock

                    Protect me from vandals
               and from jackals, keep my body
          safe from being marked-up
     by fangs of laughter, imminent
danger’s still just a rough
                    draft I’ll have to alter soon to
               include a softer side
          to my relentless temper, my
     ego’s temple eager
for it, although this world’s ending
                    needs an alternate, this
               planet’s next annihilation
          a multiplex-friendly
     universe whose plots’ paragraphs
parallel each other,
                    where uncut lines wide and not yet
               marginalized rest like
          virgin sentences: untouched, deaf,
     and useless, unless read
by statues blind to those passing

                                        ii. Hard

                    them by, Stoic minstrels
               looking stoned but alive, astride
          word-weary highways where
     a little misinformation
victims of ignorance
                    let slide, where pen-on-paper’s no
               match for scissoring lips
          or jaws on one’s jugular, this
     is the script and its pitch
not subject to the tenor of
                    your counteroffer, what
               I’m playing at is an untamed
          pasquinade no talking
     heads can master, fawning over
marble only leads lambs
                    to their slaughter, my blood’s faucet
               a chrome-plated heart, its
          arteries clogged with stolen cars
     exhausted from broken
parts vomiting up what sordid

                                        iii. Stone

                    misfortune perverts and
               bitter-thinkers hunt for, lured by
          the prospect of turning
     a prophet into a brand, an
attraction, an edgy
                    medium whose messages, when
               repackaged, start coming
          across as too sudden, when we
     haven’t even begun
exploiting this godsend of so
                    many potentially
               explosive opportunities
          for opening up cross-
     over markets, potential what
makes each season-after-
                    season of cross-pollination
               Fibonacci’s sweetest
          sequins, an unreal politik,
     of rigged numbers under-
lying success, costumes and masks

                                        iv. Cold

                    redressing mischief in
               shimmering sequels, weekends spent
          opening gross things what
     makes of my loudest existence
an example of how
                    not to go about repentance,
               changing direction my
          only intention whenever
     I tend to sin against
convention, uncertain if my
                    so-called rebellion’s worth
               appropriating as the cause
          of your revolution,
     since you’ve no culture of your own,
everything I do
                    meant to poison you vultures who
               pick through to rumour-chewed
          bone why I’m so aloof, instead
     of reading my work which
would really corrupt your lost youth.