#ianjohncoughlan

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’True Detective’ print on page from The King In Yellow.

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Design for upcoming album by Irish Noise act, Harsh Discipline. 2016

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John Constantine, 2016

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Blade Runner Gun, 2017

[palegentleman]

Stop, 2016.

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Vision series, comprising found images, 2015.

[palegentleman]

_____

Unity. Simplicity. Purity.

[palegentleman]

_

You have emptied the wet contents of your chest into the palms of a boy

Who will never be your lover because he loves only demigods, statues.

But when the stars are dim, he kisses you, his razor fingers settling

Upon the lumps of your hipbones worn pale and scarred by time.

I want to swallow you

1.8 people die every second of the day and you discover

What it’s like to be that .8 of a person, somewhere

Between flying and being buried and the wolves

That are devouring your heart every minute,

Between mouthfuls of bitterness and black,

Ask you how you dare to be so soft

In the face of a boy who only falls

For the lips of Dionysus,

The eyes of Endymion.

You wake up next to him but it never happened. You shower, never able

To actually clean out the things growing inside your heart, blossoming,

But right now you’re standing behind glass like you’ve been stabbed

And the wound has just caught up, weeping and yawning.

So no-one loves you

Or no one’s loved you the way you wanted them to.

It’s just a body, you think, looking in the mirror.

Just a fucking body. You find an angle you like,

And you wish Medusa was real right now.

She’d grab your face and keep you still.

Forever inert. A statue static and cold.

It’s all gone wrong and you just want

Planes to collide in mid-air.

You just want to be still.

To be stone.

-Ian-John Coughlan