Stonewrapped in Marble

Stonewrapped in Marble

You were one of the original hoodies,

peripheral, isolated on the edge,

cowled and stigmatised as they said

you were for the birds.

Yet you kept chirping away,

scattering crumbs of comfort as they pecked

at your stone-wall countenance

and made you blind.

But there was no poverty of sound,

the rustling of the winds habit as it

brushed past the trees was echoed

by the rattle of the corn

broadcasting their message.

But who listens to nature now,

when the only tweets come from a mocking bird?

We sow the seeds of our decline with every concrete footing

that falls on an abandoned nest.

In our desire to travel from here to there

we forget the journey.

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Happiest Days of Your Life

Submitted to Big Tent Poetry

Also submitted to Writers Island.

 

Happiest Days of Your Life

A swift fist to the head and onto the tarmac

knees skinned raw, black flakes

embedded in the cuts.

A grey-uniformed misshapen sack

of shaking limbs and snot trails on

cracked skin. Curled up tight,

a comma,

but nothing could pause this sentence.

Red blooded hands that penned your pain,

shuddering breath that couldn’t restrain

that whelping voice.

And everyday, it seemed, he came back

for his pound of flesh and left it

scraped across the yard.

Like a dog marking its territory

but it was your leg the piss ran down.

Scabs grew on scabs until they were armoured plates

and he became bored with the passive response.

The shaking stopped when he led his pack away

to rip and tear at some other stray,

until they too could roll over and play dead.

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A Time to Reflect

A Magpie Tales post.

Also submitted to Writers Island.

And to Thursday Poets Rally.

A Time to Reflect

A quick glance, backwards,

and a life is reflected.

Where an eye for regret

is stored in the gilt-edge

surround. The glass echoing

hopes long past, sundered, eclipsed

by shadows of lives not lived.

Where love almost lingered

but passed, etching layers

of guilt and memories inlaid

in wrinkles. And as I look again

that past life settles, like wind-blown

sand, on a present countenance.

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