VIVID

You parade multihued breathing canvasses
with more regularity than Northern Irish loyalists
and look down on my pallidity
much as they sneer at independence.

This, though your organ chokes
via ink-clogged pores:
mirror of their constipated hate
and delusion of superiority.

I am the eye of wisdom
muffled by cavernous echoes
peering at a blur of fading stars:
perception as sharp as chiselled flint.

You are slaves to vanity’s punctures,
but I am free … no parlour’s thrall.
My tattoos are on the inside,
the colour of pain.