We were tied to the oar,

Many miles from sight of shore;

The ship wallowing in miserable waters

As the dank sea split the hull and poured right in.

So fast, so violent, so unexpected;

Like a shot to the chin.

The ship tore apart

While the sea took its heart;

And the oar wasn't much but we grabbed it.

Drifting, drowning, holding on for life;

A poor ships counterfeit.

We floated for years,

Fighting the weight of all our tears;

Each drop lost in an endless ocean.

Floating, heaving, chained fast to our oar;

A lullaby of relentless motion

Leading us gently to the shore.

Do ya feel that?

The rough scratch of air scraping over skin,
God’s calloused hand running over heaving shoulders.
Outside, the wind never stops for a rest,
It just changes pace.

Do ya feel that?

The frantic shedding of desperate sin,
The chains of Tartarus falling like feathers;
An eaglet free of the nest,
Kicking the straw into the gaolers face.

Do ya feel that?

When the prison is broke from within,
And the fields are skies to beating wings,
Disappearing into sunlit clouds,
Lost in the storm of long sweet yellow grass.

Do ya feel that?

The rising wind carries the sound;
The horns of blind men bearing fanged arrows.
The long grass beckons in the breeze
And I’m running, flying.

Do ya feel that?

The stalks brush against my legs,
Weak hands fumbling for a grasp.
I hear my despair in my head,
A stumbled scream caught in the act.

Do ya feel that?

When the prison is broke from within,
And the fields are skies to beating wings;
Ware the fangs at your heels,
Arrows in the long grass.

Do ya feel?

The dogs sniff at the feathers,
Bloodied maws dripping with spite.
A crow takes the eagle’s eye,
The final irony of freedom is chaos.

As Mars ascended,
One split in two;
The mitosis of fact
Splitting right through.
An anaphase ritual
Lining the floor,
Where I wanted mine,
And you wanted more.

But Venus was kind
When last she was here
And gave us a gift
Of temporal fear,
So we’d done this before
And the God was decried,
Yet out of the darkness of space
He cried:

‘Oh come to me Father,
I shan’t be denied.’

And Saturn, he heard
As he fought with Rhea,
And looked at his mother
And the remains of Theia.
A plan came to mind,
A clever time trick,
And we were caught fast
By the Great Malefic.

As Saturn ascended,
We split up again,
With no time to heal,
Our love was in vain;
For Venus had long since
Bored of our space,
And our love had begun
The sad telophase.

The city breathes in,
A rattling wind of dusty smog,
Desperate in earnest,
Filling up the tubes and chambers
Like bellows on a hot furnace.

The air is pervasive, insidious;
It sticks to your skin and burns
Like holy water flicked from Jordan,
Downstream from the chemical plants
And pipes that lead health a merry chase.

It chews up the lungs with carcinogen teeth
And spits out the bits leaving holes of black
That spread through the organs like fire,
Immolating thoughts of hope and dreams,
And constantly whispering give up the race.

The city breathes out,
A rattling wind of corrupted fog,
And those that escaped the ill in the dark
Race like the wind away from its lungs,
Before the corruption spreads to their heart.

Is it odd that I hate tree stumps?

I mean, really, is it just me?
Is there something wrong with me?
I walk past them on the roadside
And something seems to break free.

I feel tense and taut;

A green branch pulled tight
On the saw edge of a gardener’s knife,
Peeling back one fibre at a time.
I can’t stop it to save my life.

It makes my skin crawl

To see the corpse left jutting up
Like the last tooth of a diseased crone,
Like a tag on the skin of the earth,
A drying scab to make the mother moan.

Couldn’t they just dig it up,

Or is that too much to ask?
Not enough to slay the ancient tree,
But to leave it lying on the ground;
Like leaving the foot of an amputee.

It makes me so mad

That I wonder I don’t complain,
But then I know a letter will be ignored,
As the death of such a mighty sentinel
Is a thing our conscience can afford.

It’s not like it was alive…

But the sarcasm doesn’t matter,
And the funny looks I get while I weep
Sink like the teeth of a saw,
Cutting through the body at my feet.

Am I the only one who hates tree stumps?

I hate the summer mornings,
And walking on a path.
I hate the silent mourning
For strangers as they pass.
I hate the way that I look down
When a stranger walks past me.
I hate the way they do the same
As if there's nothing there to see.

To turn back time is pointless,
As I'd do it all again.
For I'll never know what I know now
And I know I didn't then.
The mistakes we make when we are young
We can't go back and change,
And I'm sure I'll find my early self
Just as willing to exchange.

The time for making friends has gone
And I didn't have the tools
To make good friends with anyone
When I thought they're all such fools.
But now I know that I was wrong,
I'm a bigger fool than they;
For I'm alone and work so hard
While all they do is play.

It's true to say as we grow old
We care less what others think,
But it's also true what they all say
That as we age we shrink.
Our lives become so small outside
That there's little room to breathe,
And maybe that's why I just sigh
When someone wants to leave.

It's sad to think that I thought this
And know what I know now.
That all it took was someone else
To ignore what I allow,
And step inside my silent halls,
Open curtains on the day,
And love and laugh and dance with me
And teach me how to play.

We thought we had the vampires done,
Cornered as we raised the stakes.
The fiends were caught against the font,
An end to this for all our sakes.
How foolish to believe
That the stake would push itself,
How blinded must we be
To think we'd help ourselves.

We fell back in confusion
As their eyes lit stars of blue,
Our fiery brand burned red in fear
But the flames sputtered out on cue.
We faced the devils in their line
But they withstood our empty threats,
And took us off one by one;
It was time to pay our debts.

They laughed at our misfortune.
And gave us back our forks,
They pointed at our dampened brand
And sent us back to work.
They drank from tattooed necks
And supped from elder veins,
And bled the middle dry
And fed upon their brains.

They tore up all our rights
And placed death upon a throne,
Who drove out justice in the night
While Liber's throat did moan.
They sold us all as slaves
To merchants draped in skin,
Cut from children's backs
As the devils slowed their spin.

So now we work until we drop,
Exhausted in our penury.
We're fed from blood banks on each street
While we think that we're still free.
The vampires grin within their church
And play at pious once a while,
And watch with glee as all they cut
Divides us up in our denial.