Three Metamorphic Sonnets with Horns

Enigma has horns made of coral which the body recognises as similar to bone,
embedded in his skull.

i. Self-Portrait as Satyr

Well, one weekend, I gave myself horns
and pointed ears; upon the chin
the goatish curl of a satyr or faun.

The canvas mirrored me as Pan.
– Portrait of the Artist as Devil –
Ah, the sheer humanity of the man.

Varnished the thing, had it framed,
stuck on the wall like a disreputable ancestor.
Toyed with the idea of a forebear’s name,

some patronymic for the music my head had heard:
a kind of meme in that background beat deforming words

back-engineered to genes I’d satyrized, defaced:
Please allow me to introduce myself,
I’m a man of wealth and taste…

ii. Phrenology

I am my own masterpiece – long surpassed
my prentice work in steroids and tattoos;
botox, collagen; lips bee-stung; ribs removed.

Meanwhile, nature sets dilemmas on my brows.
“You need your bumps felt, you do,”
my old gran said and I guess it’s true.

Feel here, where skin is stretched,
these puckers, bumps. Look XXX!
– these little white-knuckled stitches,

my surgeon’s missing-you-already kisses.
See how we both signed on the dotted line,
here, on the brow where the past is erased,

where now there’s no more room for frowns.
Here – touch! – where coral knits to bone.


iii. Enigma

The classical world lives on in me,
ancient as bread and circuses.
Forget Linnaeus, his taxonomy’s
a footnote to my metamorphosis.
To classify’s mere pedantry.

You want class? Try Life. Try mixing it. Try hybrid vigour.
I’m not here to be described.
Let’s just say I am Enigma.
I am surf. I am reef. I live Beyond. I thrive Outside.

I make a poem of myself, a satyr: make skin, coral, bone, horn, all rhyme.
I seize the only day I’ve got, and every fucking day’s my prime.
If I’m defined, then let it be by pagan night – nox
est perpetua una dormienda – and I tick the box
marked Other every time.