Mind of power
Controls the crippled bodies dying; burnt
By the sun. Hung by a far-reaching cold iron chain;
Ringing with bursting, thrusting pain;
Where the eyes are tissues of penetrating darkness that turns into tortured dreams.
You can still hear the screams,
The muttering, the mumbling, the confessions of the innocence that learnt
The sufferings and sorrow of evil. I lay a flower
Into blood and left it to float upon a river of *****; leaving
A stream of pneumonia, a stream of the plague that
Left the pungent smells of perfume dying.
I watched their estranged faces, their eyes still crying.
Bodies lie still awakened in trench like beds; lying flat
On their backs as they left their loved ones grieving.

©Jack Aylward