Blank
They stare at me
Oblivious
To the rage below

Congregating in corners
They plot against me
Sadistically
Blocking out the world

Chained
Voice eludes my tongue
Hoarse from silence
Deafened by its echo

Determined
My will hammers away
Rhythmic
I will not succumb

Heart beats or sledge strokes?
I will break free

In the coven’s cavern
Dark and dusky
Wart and Weird
A potion are planning

Boiling and bubbling
The cauldron they caress
Eye of emu
Finger of fiend

Mutter and mumble
Hair of hare
Claw of cat
Splash and sparks

With a wicked whisper
A **** and a poke
A whip of a wand
Silent strangling smoke

Covered beneath her cloak
A vile vial full
The murderous magic made
A dead baron as bade

Obscure, drawn, demented
With mouths agape
We blend in wishing to stand out

The mop that sloshes
Keeps us clean
But below its dark and dingy

Our screams of pain
Aching to be heard
Are masked by the ever shiny wax

Too long have the feet of oppressors trodden us down
The scuffs that scar these weary forms
But the day has come

Voice has reached the mouthing
The trapped are breaking free
Too long unheard, too long absurd

Now we stand on high
Our feet on even ground
No boot shall ever again trod us down

I swung wide my shutters this morning at dawn
To witness the beauty as another day was born.
Too early I’d risen for the cool of night yet hung there,
Her eyes still sparkled and indigo graced her hair.

Slowly as her cheeks flushed with rose,
And periwinkle adorned her face at night’s close,  
In a frost covered bush a fluffy bird stirred,
A rustle, then a flutter and soon a chirp could be heard,

A flurry of wings and the windowsill bore a Bluejay.
Proudly, clearly, these were the words he had to say;

“Goodbye dark velvet of night,
Sink lower and be gone from sight.
Up now golden yoke of day
Cast your diamonds upon the expectant bay.
Arise too folks of Sleepy Hollow,
For the sun has risen and gone be your sorrow”.

The steam that rises from the shell
Mists up the scope lens
A steady hand etches a heart
Through which the other bleeds

A tattered pass absorbs the flood
Inches from the silent hand
That reached beneath his thread bare coat
A white flag not received

The towel-head becomes another scratch
A tally of the toll
A line on the barrel of a hired gun
No space for numbers here

A dog-eared girl
Watermarked in red
Stares up from the inner cover of the pass…
… daddy won’t be coming home tonight

I pull open the cover,
a trap door to the deck.
“Weigh the anchor!”
and with a splash the adventure  begins.

”Trim your sails!”
and the curtain ***** behind me.
The bow of Old Salt splits the waves
and I wipe the spray from my glasses.

There’s mutiny aboard the ship.
With cutlasses drawn I hear them charge,
the “pok-pok” of a peg leg
is my dad at the door.

“It’s twelve gone”, he says
and I see them fall to the deck.
In the heat of the action
there’s no time to count the loss!

There’s a shout from the door,
“They’ve scuttled the ship!”
My feet get cold
as the hull fills up.

The water is rising
it dowsers my candle.
The crew is sprawled awkwardly on the still, red-dyed deck,
as the leather bound novel falls from my bed…

Terrorism, ****,
Car bomb, *******...
She feels vulnerable,
No love to keep her warm

9/11, kidnap,
Human trafficking...
She’s been forgotten,
Left alone in the dark

Serial killers, H1N1,
Child molesters, ***...
She shudders with the cold,
And Port Au Prince is flattened

Hijack, ******,
Drive-by shootings...
She feels groggy,
Influenza sets in

Weapons of mass destruction,
Cuban nuclear tests...
There starts a tingle in her nose,
Her eyes pinch shut

Genocide, organs on the black market,
Xenophobia, suicide bombers...
With a bellow from her bowels,
From flaming ice the cumulus anvil that infects the world