The tide of dawn breaks in a surf-slap of forced urgency
Its backwash the limb-snagging routine of mechanical puppetry
A spray of dazed haste, clock watching and checks
Until the silent road is tread under the floating pale moon
Nature holds its breath, still waiting for sound to awake
From bent trees hurtling by on the familiar asphalt bends

The first arrow volley across the meeting table looses
All nurse wounds, some incapacitated for the day
Dull-eyed dashes for cover soon ensue
In the dust cloud kicked up by time's dragging heels
Through which the future whispers of release and light
But until that day knees shall buckle and heads shall bow
Amid carnage of fault and blame and fractured logic

The hours end in meager relief, draining with light
Back to the roof of a shell no home to the heart
Its inhabitants look askance in the perpetual clamour
Eroding the final bastions of serenity
Excess decibels resound off walls too close
Tugging on sanity's tattered edges

Breeze sighs coyly, ever the temptress
Carressing stalks of intoxicated flowers in contented stupors
Drooling dewdrops, yet virginial to sobriety

Paint on the tiled driveway dresses in dawn
Whiter than white, patches of sky afoot
Wet smell of earth the last reminder of night

7.03 upslope scarce affords a glance
Worlds of wonders skipped in every stride
Morning birds shriek from their green citadels, messengers of war

Heart sighs. There is much cause to surcease.
Mind grips the reins tighter. Perfect Monday weather.

Some scrawl the names of people present and past
Some drench theirs in pearlescent candied nacre
Shapes and hues exact, stencilled down to the last
Pretty copies of individuality

There are those who have it forced upon the face
Growing into it, it feels more natural
To don that dress, to hit the gym and say grace
Becoming the things they are needed to be

The flawless surface ever in flux stirs and returns to slumber.

Still others, indecisive, searchful, hover
From pile to pile, over fractalised discards
Picking out their newest favourite cover
For their brittle blandness blushed by exposure

Mine has grown inwards, claws entrenched beneath skin
Reverse quicksand; raking scars old and fresh
Valour marks in the battle I cannot win
My silence percolates. Outside it accretes

It glows in flickers of luciferous fluoroscence, firefly flashes.

Hope is but another addiction to break
Yet this air hangs heavy, toxic to inhale
A frigid gut burn with every breath I take
Soulful tremor smothered in despair's cocoon.

Fingers roam my jaw. Phantom edges they seek
Futility dawns. It has long disappeared
As have the haunting echoes of devil-speak
I have swallowed it all as it consumed me

It changes, chameleon-like, dissolving pixels on a screen.

Is it me, or am I it? It matters not
Its pulse fills my veins with something close to life
Yet I musn't bleed - the fluid does not clot
It leaks slowly like a punctured memory

Inside nestles the tangle of cobwebbed dreams
Silken sojourns unwittingly petrified
Quavering mutedly to my stifled screams:
You cannot, you shall not, you must not come in!

Slip into the viscous stream of starched fabric knowing I belong not here, ever the dissonant clef rattling its bar

Presence coaxes the parched throat but slakes not the gut's burn. I have learnt to swallow the fireballs I fear may wayward fly

Lactic oblivion strains the milk, scrubbing out taints of blossom-red

Speak, so their shunted breaths return trembling to the lips. There is nothing to see, hear, this drum echoes with ghosts you fathom not

Twice weekly I cross over to the past, fleeting high-breasted gryphon among the bright-eyed hatchlings. Then the summons of the bell

Reality strikes as lightning; the boom that trails it is the singed silence of the mute mind