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Darkness engulfs me
Echoing screams penetrates  my soul
I feel nothing, emptiness surrounds me
Suspended in place by the energies of the abyss
Something pulled me…
Pulling harder and harder
I can’t control this force
Pulling so violently
With a flash of light I gasp for air…
My vision blurry at first clears
Paramedics...
Have brought me back to life
Intertwining boughs
Arch high above
Shading this desolate road.
I walk a solitary path.
Roaming lost in thought
Unaware of the deepening night
Beneath these shadowy limbs.

Owls wake slowly as dusk passes to night.
Wolves catch the scent of prey on the wind.
Whispering hollowly through the trees it
Shares the news of fell deeds done this night

And I alone on this long and lonely road
Feel the danger present in every direction.

Yet, so lost in thought am I,
Unaware of approaching predators.
Until a deep sense of dread
permeates my very soul.

I hear pounding hooves on packed soil
and hurl myself into the clutches of the trees.
I listen as the ******* who would have my head
Continue their flight from the horrid deeds they perpetrated.

Lost and frightened, I stay as I fell,
then exhausted, I sleep,
covered by the brush that clawed at my clothing,
Only to wake in my love's strong arms
As his tears rain upon me at the sweet break of dawn.
 Oct 2011 Mark Butkus
Madeline
belly-laughing beer-drinking tongue-waggling
boot-stomping word-romping
beautiful bearded
golden-toned stories in my head
feeling you in my fingertips, my palms
the tip of my tongue

but in the night, in my head, in the moonlight
you dance.
Another heady day blooms and gathers pace
Spring dawns at 5 a.m. with a gargle and spit in the dark

Big rain drops and falls
Soft blood red wet cherry stones of bath salts
Splayed across my ageing face
Autumn showers then walks

The spiderweb of ragged birdsong feathers and
Threads through the branches
Of just November trees
Autumnal hymnal
Singing through the dying darkness, whispering
Don’t capture the light

And walking jogs thought
Factoring rebuke as Information unwanted  
Proof then reproof
The tarmac fields of youth
Tilled by broken hands with
Broken men mending pipes and wires
Time leaves a presage- a butterfly mark
Autumn leaves their signals sending winter’s mark
Beauty colours death

— The End —