Ajf115

Flashing, roaring, racing lightning Burns away the cloying dark. Clouds are waves upon the cliff Of blue sky, rolling endlessly into the cold Void of the heavens. The winds hound The clouds into the void above. Clouds boil into being above And between them flickers pale lightning. Baying at the sky, lean hounds' Voices are lost in the thunder echoing from the dark. The winds build, blowing cold Down the clouds in the sky, tall like cliffs. The sea, storm-driven, beats against the cliffs, Spraying spume to the ledges above. The waves clamour and duel, cold In their roaring wrath, cold as the pale lightning Which sunders and routs the dark, D

Vaguely, I rust. The tide carries me away, mote by mote Dispersing me. I mingle silently With the sand and silt. Proudly, I remember. I was thunder and wrath upon the waves, The temple and the goddess within. I was mighty. I am not now. Submarine I linger, A browning shade of a skeleton; Old iron bones attended by fish And crusted with barnacles. O my beloved, O my enemy You have claimed me in the end.

Lie on your back. Watch the sky. Watch for Mother. Hear her wings, two showers Of bismuth feathers, Gleaming. Iridescent. She calls. Answer in your two-tone warble. Listen to her returning-song. She alights, And the sky no more Is cold and empty white and blue. She is a firmament of colour Embracing you Drawing you into a world of feathers.

We ghost through this house of life, Footprints a patina Growing darker with years. Our spilled Wines and veins throw spectres on the floor, Soak into the dirt. The stains are faint and fading, But a moment's bright vibrancy, Then dulling, darkening to brown - Always to brown, a sepia photograph of being. Year on year, though, we gather Our stains upon the floor Such that one day One distant day, Some child might look upon them And imagine us, the shades, And play at us And remember.

The yellow faces frown And smile and laugh at me, Backlit, Glowing usurpers of words. They elbow and jostle the letters, Constricting them. Lol. Rofl. BRB. The victims squeeze and squeal, shrunken. I string a colon and a D Together where a 'Great!' Once grinned. Text has faces now. They watch me, leering Imps. I summon up my own. 👿👿👿

 As I sit here upon the earth My soul is in the sky. One day upon my own wings Above here I will fly. I’ll ride the gales and jet streams, I’ll dance across the sky, I’ll soar above the storms so great, On feathered wings I’ll fly. I’ll sing into the thunder That rolls across the sky And I will ride the lightning, On lightning I will fly. But for now I’m bound to Earth And can only watch the sky; So I sit and watch the clouds Until the day I fly.

Here were dragons in times long gone Wyrms so great they darkened the sun Now I see dragons in London’s smoke And on their breath the peoples choke Their blazing blood is pumped through wires Their substation-hearts channel the fires Their hoards are not gold but courtroom papers And their subjects are not kings, but beggars Their scales are concrete, their bones are steel They guzzle oil for a meal Their claws are sunk in the stone foundations Of an ancient city that rules a nation You see their eyes in those of men With pinstriped suits and gold-topped pens Their lairs are towers, glass and steel They’re slain not by swords,

Do you listen in the silence And hear a thousand voices sing? Can you listen to their melody, Which from uncounted throats doth ring? When you sit alone and quiet Beneath the heaven’s arc Have you ever heard them, The voices in the dark? When you gaze into a starry sky Whose voices sound behind your eyes? What secrets do those voices hold, The voices of the starlit cold? “We sing our song upon our light That reaches you on starlit night. Will you sing to us afar And send your song on light of star?” They sing these words behind my eyes These and many more besides. They sing of worlds consumed in flame And planets which t

Can you hear our voice in the trees  That floats and swells upon the breeze? Words like whispers, quiet and low  "We remember your coming here, ages ago. You came from eastwards, over the sea   You came here in crafts made of iron-slain trees. You slew more of our brothers, with fire-forged tools   Their bodies made crosses to kill imaginary ghouls. You butchered the wild with axe and with metal.   You burned out glades of flowers and nettle. On their graves you built your houses of brick   And stone and wood with walls too thick For our roots to grow into and pull down before   You build another house there, then another and more.