Author Archives: Tony Single

bride of christ

she’s heavy metal, bitch
hips slammin’ yours like a brick
her bangin’ body will fuck you up
commandeer the twist & suck
hit your senses like a truck

but none can fuck her up as much
as good as he can fuck her up
droves she’ll allow inside her
but none she’ll allow to drive her
the way her thickening dark lord did

yes, she married the fool
for his majesty she still burns
for his second coming she yearns
for his slippers beneath their bed
kissing the numb out of her head
fucking her up all over again

’til then she’s the iron fucking maiden
none will get to have what’s inside
& before they keen to draw first blood
she’ll spin the spikes on herself
the calamity that starts the flood

she’s heavy metal, bitch
she’ll fuck your hips into the dirt
to prove to you she does not hurt
the slut that whores & never cries
the iron maiden that never dies

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026

dum spiro spero

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it trusts in the hand of the sower
but trust can be as blind as the bat
that beats it down even lower
into the ground

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it trusts in the richness of the soil
but soil can spoil in the winter
where it becomes harder to toil
into nature’s crown

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it can only sprout up in bare faith
but faith can be pared down further
by the taxman’s loathing of waste
in for a pound

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
can bloom ‘tween stones with its last gasp
but a last gasp is as transient
as a world that burns in the blast
of a nuked town

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

cripple at beautiful gate

well, i went & trod the great south road
when you told me not to go
i meandered in the crayon fields
but that child died long ago
the colours weren’t anywhere to look
yeah, far as flies the crow
except the black that bled from these stumps
that carried me to & fro

well, life is such a disappointment
where did the years all go
i gambolled in the hambone hills
but lust is death don’t you know
fantasy splayed by heat & look
yeah, pecked on by the crow
i eat the sickly gangrene stumps
that carried me to & fro

well, no matter where i lay my head
i’m always fear on the go
i’ll never be too innocent, yeah
gehenna’s bloody flow
she’s so damn hot, she makes me look
yeah, spit on by the crow
burn bright you cursed charcoal stumps
that carried me to & fro

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2008

nettle track

that is the place
where everything starts
fog in the trees
in the nettled heart

a tiny silhouette
a pouch on a stick
on demeter’s eve
on the move real quick

smoking pipe stuffed
with tobacco balm
a rite of refocus
or deleterious harm

fragile & daring
i follow my dream
between the wolf’s howl
& the night bird’s keen

that is the place
that i’ll journey to
for to make our peace
i’ll be waiting for you

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

plesh

last to wake, last to sleep
each day, unalived a little more
by longliners, systems & regimes
with too many nets, hooks & means
cozened in the sunken sands
of befuddlement & dreams

braced for the descaling
gaping at the moon’s reflection
why is the only way up
ever found on another shore
have i not already unalived
a thousand wretched times before

alive’s become harder to eddy into
where have all the minnow gone
when algae tastes like rotting meat
dare one muster to tell the deep
from whence one’s shadow sprang & ends
of expectations unalived midstream

braced for the descaling
gaping at the moon’s reflection
nothing known could anchor me here
but one oneself, so what can i do
but alive somehow through another night
in hopes dawn bedews e’er full sweet

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026