DEPARTED THIS STAGE OF EXISTENCE

Moss & lichen
eat each chiselled name

gnaw away at
stone memories.

Even the stone
is withered.

Some faces
having nothing to say

or a half-eaten date
that's lost its name.

Time chewed &
spat  out.

There is the cut
of salt in the air.

Tombstones lie all
higgedly-piggedly

as if the graveyard is
a drunken dance.

Ghosts frozen in the air
held in the grasp of frost,

Trees blown into
fierce gestures

a dance of demons
etched against a sky

that crumbles
into nothingness.

The sun afraid
to show its face.

The sea flattens
itself into silver

only the silence
can be heard.

The tide lays back
from the shore

cockle pickers stop &
move again

like human punctuation
marks.