Crouching in the rotted dust,
Covers covet the light;
Dull, discoloured dust jackets
And wrinkled leather hides
Of the books that moulder and muse,
Ruminate and render themselves
To dust, as everything must,
Upon long-forgotten shelves.
Becomes the perfect breeding ground
For shadows, for sickness, for sin;
The ladies are seen to turn away
With tarnished faces and tattered gowns,
While the hero remains anonymous,
A nobody about the town.
A plot studded with lacunas
And paralysed on page one,
Words grown together in intimate embraces
Never to be undone.
Thin volumes of poetry
Shiver with the poison of years,
As passions freeze and snow falls in May –
The daffodils die a beautiful death,
The clouds are mottled and grey.
A teardrop hits the page.

Calm and cosy
Curled up in my cotton tomb,
Transported back to the womb,
Where I dreamt endlessly.
There I smelt my life
Imminent, timid,
But ****** and vivid;
Here it is different
And deadly.
My life reeks of decay
As it burns away;
I taste the ash of my lungs,
Anaesthetised, desensitized,
Stupefied and condemned.
Scorched by conflagration,
Numbed by smoke,
But I do not choke
Just sleep
And keep on dreaming.
My cotton tomb ablaze,
A-kindle and consuming,
Collapses while still fuming,
Swallows me as I slumber
Or so I thought.

My maid she came a-wandering,
A-wondering,
And saw me here a-slumbering
In my cotton tomb of fire.
I felt her drown my death,
Extinguish Hell,
Restore my breath,
And I awoke in a fit of passion,
‘Deuce take me, what has happened?’
The timid creature,
Like newborn life,
Stood trembling, as well as I,
But told the tale
From start to end.
I implored of her
To not say a word;
The events of which have occurred
Are our secret –
Instead I enclosed her in my arms
As rapture seized me in its jaws,
Dragged me back from Death’s door
And threw me at her feet.
I praised her long
My preserver, my protection,
Then let her shivering form go
In the wake of my affection.

You want to see my blank stare
after death, tasting like metal,
came to meet me half-way?
The red on living canvas;
the rose blooming,
and the blue lips.
Hear the chambers drown my last,
after the thorns tore
my internal sails?
A drum beat fading,
the river slowing,
and no more.
Smell the claret stains,
my blush gone bittersweet
and reeking of ruby metal?
Adrift in the Red Sea
after the lead rain,
you can.