I feel as though my mind
Is a dark cave
Thoughts like inky black spikes
Growing longer with each day

It's as if there is a cage
Hanging by an iron wire
With me trapped inside it
I sit there
Curled up in a ball

As the cage swings steadily
Back
And fourth
Some spikes growing long enough to
Scrape the edges
And yet their blackness
Makes them impossible to anticipate

Sandstorm of Affection

We danced in our spheres
Kept the hope for happiness within
But exhaustion and time came and undressed our realities
Fate became inevitable

With a single blow

We ran into our separate caves
Left the sandstorm to tear down everything that once surrounded us
We survived in our safety pretext
But the sandstorm was all in our element, where it lingered

Throughout our quests for genuine safety
We left little holes
Like those of termites' hills
To peep through as we paid careful attention
To the hope of the storm's immediate resolution
But so sorrily,
The winds were cruelly stronger than our expectations
And the turbulent winds spun violently piercing grains of sand
That greedily and hurtfully clogged our spying termites' holes
And shun us from the only last thing
That the sandstorm in our element had spared
So now we can hope for survival in our isolated darks

Thus, with a single atom of hope left within
Will we ever see each other again?
The cruel wish

Mongi C. Nkabindze

Colors of yellow flood the room
Birds fly by with vibrant plumes.
The walls are studded with glowing rocks.
The sharp edges of the wall give me shocks.

Up and down the corridor, they shimmer.
Reflecting off each other, they glimmer.
Amber, cyan, cerulean, amethyst.
Colors like potions of an alchemist.

They diminish and increase with time.
But look stunning and full in their prime.
Like hearts of the cave, fractured in millions.
Each one is a different civilian.

They radiate beauty, energy, light.
Not one corner remains dark as night.
The tunnel is long, twists and turns.
Walking this length, my feet have no burns.

This cave of wonders has it's value.
My experience turn this from profit to view.
The cave is a city of lively animation.
I have stepped into the next dimension.

Dark mountains and
stalactite tears
blending into cave
marks on the wall.
A funeral? But
warmth and belonging
and a community
of travel, hope, legacy.
Footprints on the ground.

The cave, a discovered diary.
Rock walls, pages of history.
Etchings and markings
A social commentary,
Buried for an eternity.

Lost in a melee
Of storms and hurricanes
And earthquakes shaking.
Depictions of life,
Of civilization in the making.
Messages chiseled
With muscle and blood,
Signs of existence
Where communities once stood
And thrived on the need
Of food through labours,
The skies, the trees
Their pagan saviours.
Dark rains that poured
Before the construction of Zion,
The shifting of contours,
The shaping of horizons.

Art: the first form
Of true communication.
The observing of omens
Through pictorial narration.
Lessons unlearned,
Warnings unheeded
From a time when the promise
Of future was seeded.
Histories left to benefit man
Before possession was borne
And conflict began.

A legacy left, designed by tribes
From an ancient time
For narrators and scribes.
Their duty to record
An ever-changing world
Through parchment and pigment
And the spoken word,
For future species
Of woman and man
To strategise survival,
To project and to plan.
Knowledge more likely
To be buried, interred,
Then discovered too late
For lessons to be learned

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017

Chained to these walls
I can see only the shadows
The fire gives light to these dark silhouettes
I call them by their names
Puppets, people, or books.
They're  my company and must be real.
I perceive only what I see.
Silhouettes and shadows that are real to me.
I force myself to turn
My shackles are tight
I embrace the company of  my companions
Puppets, people, and books.
I know them by no other names.


Inspired by The Allegory of The Cave