my heart ticks with the punctuated rhythm of a girl busy with embroidery i see a corpse and scrutinise all its secrets it lingers with a purposeful dexterity a tenacity that resembles autocrats of a starved third world country a dangerous presence that underpins a blank prism my reconnaissance reveals a frenetic arc orbiting, humming as it does so with intricate nightly returns travels between light and shade where black shadows tred forming a link in the great causal chain of human destiny it is a place where stone ghosts welcome me with threatening indifference of magical incantations i roam through deserted streets with an inherent clumsiness like waves on dark coastlines that in hypnotic deception form groups of disorientated sadness where clouds of black crows fly around sinister watch towers in the dark