This language

Already archaic

Sits ageing on

The page-

A youth-like this
Once was-

Stares vacant
Into space

I am a sentinel
Poet of stone
Sitting apart
Sitting alone.

I do not twinkle
No star made of glass
I do not think
About things of the past.

I'm no wooden flute
Played with feeling and ease.
My breathing on earth
Has long ago ceased.

I'm no longer able  
To hear, nor to talk
But when I move  
YOU WILL HEAR ME WALK.

I'm not man or woman
I'm not boy or girl.
I no longer see  
With the eyes of this world.

I cannot touch
And I cannot feel.
But I can exist  
I assure you I'm real.

I am an island
a massive stone head.
An ossified remnant  
Of the long-ago dead.

I haunt the gravestones
They draw me. They lure.
I am so like them
I will endure.

Yes, I'm a stone angel
Your flowers I see,
But I cannot smell them
For I cannot breathe.

Yes, those stone markers
A metaphor be.
Those silent stones
Are actually ME.


Soul Survivor