Fear

Terrified,
I stumble
Through the forest
Trapped in some other girl's
Nightmare.

Lightning
Strikes each tree in turn
Everything turns to ashes
And we stand by
Watching

The forest burn
And then we turn
And we walk away
Leaving the vultures
To devour their prey.

Hag

Fearsome
Chapped reddened hands
Worn down by decades
Of work, work, work

And I tell her
That I cannot remember
The last time I spoke
I hold out my own hands

As soft
As ripe peaches. They yield
But still I cannot feel
Sporadically, I see

A vision
Of you floating before my eyes
Toughened by time in life
But in death you are

As you were before
And I see but still
I cannot hear
And I flee but still
I feel no fear

Some Dark Raven

Her rage is scrawled in blood-red ink
Across the plain white page. Her shadow
Lengthens, stretches as the day grows darker
I feel an irrevocable connection with her
I venture further into that bleak territory
I fear the gift she has bestowed upon me

This diary takes my hand and leads me
Through life. I cling to her word
For she was truly great and I turn
To contemplate her portrait. That image
Painted by those circling vultures
Who never knew her and never will

Her dismembered corpse lies there
On that wasteland, in that public mortuary
Laid bare for all to see. Blue blood
Seeps from her memory. And I
Have delegated all the responsibility
That was bequeathed to me

Her ghost is some dark raven
Huddled in an unbending tree
By daylight I hear her brood
By twilight she slips nimbly by
In the devilish deluge of darkness
She pays no mind to my distress

I am strangled, entangled
By her opulent prose and her convoluted
History. That sumptuous, pungent plot
And she has never forgiven me
For permitting those in authority
To bury her on unconsecrated ground

Diminutive Devils

Those elephantine children
Whose heavy footfall pounds the ground
Above me. It quakes, it yields

The shriek, they shriek,
While their mother looks on, proud,
A saccharine smile

On her cowlike face
Revelling in the carnage they create
I fix my eye

On the white expanse of ceiling
Watching, as fragments of plaster
Dislodge themselves. White powder

Falls to the floor
And then the roof caves in
And venom surges forth

Those two, they are
Blemishes on my bleak landscape
Diminutive devils

Misshapen gluttons
Like multicolured sky rockets
They ascend, arch and descend

The House

This ancient stone house speaks its own language
And I cling to the blueness afforded to me
By the cracked windows. Not enough, I complain

But the danger lies within, not beyond
These impenetrable walls. I am reminded
By a sharp, verbal slap in the face

I feel those old ghosts grieve. I am numb
I walk through those colourless rooms
Seeking, yet dreading, revelations

A signal – full and clear. A shout! Danger!
Someone else is in this room with me
A fragment of him embeds itself within my psyche

Cherubs and Gargoyles

Cherubs and gargoyles meet in the stone
Walls above the street, Feet pound the pavement
We do not lament the witches that were burnt
Three centuries ago. Right here-

Where I stand now and yet somehow
Their spirits shriek above the wind
Eyewitnesses to darkness
Their essence remains

As it rains and rains and rains
Dark spirits adore a stormy climate
And above me the bright moon rises,
Setting the scene alight.

From Beyond

Peeping out from behind this purdah
White-faced and fearful. Infinity awaits
Melancholy seeps, seeps, seeps out of me
Like some strange yet beautiful melody

From some instrument clasped to the heart
Lovingly. And passers by stare
My sisters glare for I am a bud that refuses
To flower and I cleave to my sacred prison

Nothingness Between Us

There is nothing in the channel
Between our two countries. Nothing
But blackguards, pirates

Bent on our annihilation
They amass themselves on every border
The darkness gathers overhead

Nothing legitimate remains
And we take the easy path - we surrender
Our victim status is engendered

We are bound down
By wave after wave of hate and onlookers
Sit back and they contemplate

Flaxen haired nurses
From the other side of the world
Wander among the wounded

Beneath an expansive, turquoise sky
Far above the flavour and the stench
Of fear, of blood, of death

And everything pauses
As they stoop down among
Endless columns of refugees

Agile and skilled
Dressed in crisp white uniforms
They genuflect to the abandoned

Embittered Daybreak

An embittered daybreak on the battlefield
Dead combatants lie amidst the tall grass
The Inner Circle stoops over maps and
Those Generals cast shadows over the landscape
Destroying, then sculpting, then rebuilding

And when they speak columns of soldiers obey
‘We’ll bomb them off the face of the planet,’
They say. And horseback riders stop and stumble
‘The Calvary have arrived,’ we cry
And I send a prayer into the sky

But the deity I plead with is deaf
Or maybe dead, like the bloodied corpses
That stain the earth crimson
And my words remain unheard
And no miracle is despatched.

Dreaming and Scheming and Screaming

Beyond my shroud, beyond my borders
Something hideous and yet heavenly
Unsurpassed by what I have experienced
They are burdensome, these limitations

I do not engage in repartee with those around me
I am jaded, devoid of both expectation and apprehension
I glance outwards. I fix my gaze
Beyond their horizon for I inhabit

An isolated inner island. My heart is momentarily
Elevated. I stand on the precipice
Edges darkened with sorrow
I find myself dreading tomorrow

A blade poised to descend
Their brilliance, their vitality, is killing me
There is nothing here to revitalise me
And they bemoan my apparent inflexibility

While I long for the immensity of the ocean
I will never see, those shifting blue waters,
It is far too calm here
As sunset sucks the life out of the land

I do nothing underhand
But dream and scheme and scream within
Wild eyes hidden by dark glasses
No feelings revealed, everything concealed

The land is too solid beneath my feet
And those pale people press against me
A coal black sky descends
It shows no mercy for anybody.