drng

Soft were the waves that lapped against the shore
And in the prints they left just as a thumb
Had pressed, those sandy ridges shaped before
The whim of ardent winds and moon and sun

There as the tide rode out to vision’s end
From thence the bare backed seas were seen to arch
And carried in, the sands were churned again
The treasures ta’en, the sea had sought to part

A shell that lay abandoned once contained
A host that wore it ‘gainst the waves and foes
Deserted by the tide beneath the rain
Lay glistening there beyond despair and woe

Against my ear it softly spoke to me
For stolen in my palm, I held the sea.

Where lies the beating heart? The blood which flowed
Is nought but dust within these ghostly veins
Now shadows creep across the walls and roads
Meandering through the last of what remains

Would that the words spok’n here could have endured
These susurrations never came to be
The whispers from the walls Time had immured
Nor echoes from the wind across the trees

This crumbled ruin, polished into dust
Is tenured hence, for here the stones begin
The silent tomes, that in their telling must
Defile the ghosts whose truth was hid within

As wings now palpitate through dark and light
The beating heart is lost within their flight

Take down the boxes from their dusty shelves
And gently pry apart the folded leaves
Unwrap the secrets so to timely delve
Into the murky depths of soft deceits

Amongst the scrawled misgivings and the shades
Of faded smiles that wander through the years
Across the ageing faces, till the page
Is turned again to mask their vagrant tears

These cardboard mausoleums that would hold
The bolded spectres we could ne’er replace
When age, and loss and entropy and mould
Make mysteries of all that were encased

These overflowing shelves, our lives could fill
A thousand trinkets Time would finally steal

Time peels away the layers of my life
To watch my clothing fall upon my feet
And naked now I stand and filled with strife
I’m at a loss for who I ought to be

My garments all, my shirt, my shoes, my coat
The socks I wore until they were too thin
My friends, all parted with their stories tote
To dust, to leave me lost within my skin

Take up the brush, I beg, and paint upon
Those mystic symbols to adorn my face
Unspoken meanings lost within a song
I half remember in a dream’s embrace

In my reflection, shall the markings be
Those remnants of the life now left to me

Amongst a thousand olive trees that kept
A dream of fragrant breezes and the waves
The harvests failed, and all the children wept
When swallows fled the remnants of the day

For now the Sun is spent, its garlands fall
The petals cast as floral sacrament
To Earth and weary feet that fled the walls
That shook and tumbled with the sky’s lament

Into the mouths of wolves, how could it be
Their baying at the moon did not portend
To shepherds and their flocks, catastrophe
That lay in wait of all things at the end

The screams and wails of Gods and their machines
Intrude upon the edges of our dreams

The painted spirits hide ‘midst ochre dreams
Meandering ‘tween the waking and the dead
So lost, yet immemorial markings seem
To lure the whispered memories from their heads

Like shadows caught within the piercing gaze
Of eyes endowed with power beyond the light
And so entombed, the ministries of days
Forget the fateful coming of the night

In stillness, can you hear the Dreaming’s song?
It calls out to its children from the place
Where spirits hide, till soon the Dreaming longs
To hold forgotten worlds in its embrace

This moment of the Dreamtime, it may be
forever lost within the tapestry

The whispers spread, till burdened branches crack
And break, to scatter claws and padded feet
Their soft percussion lifts the hooded black
And gleaming eyes to wake, this night to greet.

A fluttering of feathers, that once were
The arrows ‘gainst the brutal world, assail
A broken chaos made, till all a blur
With chilling breezes now become a gale

Oh ride the winds, and heed the mountain’s call
There is no more redemption in this night,
The moon-tipped forest’s ghosts, are met by all
To hear the widow’s curse, take flight, take flight!

Then from the sky its shadow falls, Below
It’s wounded heart, lies soft and virgin snow

The skies will open
Until the preacher
Casts
A hymn
Across this darkened valley
Hence
And through the rain
The voices carry
Thin
To bring her home
This broken day to
end

Oh sing, oh sing,
May yet the music
Drown
The sorrows
Seeping through the lonely
hills
As echoes rattle branch
And root, while
down
the stream will
float the blooming flowers
still

My tears, my tears
Come pouring from the
sky
As melancholy Hosts will not
refrain
From their laments
o’er where my bonnie
lies
Until beneath the Earth
We’ll meet
again

My spirit now
is broken
As my
troth
Is now forsa’en
For now
My love is
lost

From birth, through the decay of Time will cross
The void to catch a keener eye to gaze
At eons past, the fields of moments lost
These remnants of those first and final days

In dimming clusters burnt a million Suns
Who sent their ghosts across the breach of space,
To wander as a paradox, that once
uncovered, yields their lost and hidden face

As now we seek those galaxies that were
Unyielding in their brilliance, thereupon
Our mortal eyes, their hope and glory sure,
‘fore dying Suns would turn all others wan

As then, the dark horizon’s promise be
Our Sun will be our only legacy