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Because you weigh your life in your hand

and it is a broken shell

because your voice has lost its teeth

you intone

to the breeze

‘you’re a goddess brushing past’, and

to the sky, ‘peace

cannot be bluer’

and to those bones, your dreams

‘you will find flesh

and live’.   

Search

Still in darkness, I am the fool who

believes in bottled sunlight. If only

I could find the right stopper,

the right rune or incantation:

surely, then

the light would keep.  

Curse

By the ancient binding of rebirth on the moon

your bond shall be ageless and true

by the changeless breakers that yearn for the shore

your spirit shall seek no other

by the belly of the earth that churns with fervour

your blood shall burn for no other.

Earth shall churn and the moon shall ever

hurl breakers to the shore

and you shall yearn and burn. 

Old Water

We are fated to tread old water,

To drink from the same poisoned cups.

The treasures of the old ones will soon be ours,

Their memories lost and reborn to hum anew.

Tragic, comic, or even fantastic, your story

Has been told elsewhere – your dreams

Have shone in the eyes of another. 

I, Conjurer

If I could craft her essence into words,

Muster even a mite of her majesty,

What words they would be!

Freeing David from dead marble  

Remains the stuff of dreams. 

Still, I try

To conjure magic

Out of the mud of words

And the breath of my life-giving spirit.

Cure

In a lab full of vapours and spirits and twisted tubes,

He set out to conquer death. In this mad lair, 
Unsleeping and forgotten, he toiled 

And at last, with a slight touch of thyme,

Held a vial of liquor to the light – at last! 

He put the stuff to his lips and drank the cure –

No longer would he contend with the malady.  

Senescing

With time, our joints are loosened by winds,

By scouring sands in the winds,

By soaking rains hauled from high mountains,

By quakes that crack us open, leaving us helpless

Against the brutish rush of the elements.

We raise walls to keep them away –  

Will the wildness of time away,

But soon we’ll be lost in their insatiable lust, 

And the magic of the moon will mean nothing.