Its beauty,
is its stillness.
With the long grass hiding it,
the serpent is hidden.
Waiting.

The drum of its heart is,
ever present.
Those venomous eyes.
Spearing the skin of me.
I bleed to a symphony of suffering.


How inquisitive!
Have they no secrets?
Have the not murdered, themselves?
They cannot grasp the tarnished gold.
They are too good neighbors.

Ink spills the parchment,
as red as roses in the midst of war.
My life is unwritten as two.
Then they offer me water,
with the ripeness of poison.

GRAHAM MURPHY