Stillness echoed long and loud
Among the waterlilies out,
And was repeated by the trout
Who would not move or swim about

Silence reigned at morning come
And into noon the world kept mum
Noiseless sunlight beams become
An unforgiving tranquil thrum

I came upon this place by chance
Where time had stopped its ageless dance
Mirrored waters at first glance
Who’s picture put me in a trance

Not a single sound was heard
Not a cricket nor a bird
Perhaps a fly that soon demurred
To stillness that here reigned unstirred

When at last my mind awoke
From its dreamlike state, I spoke,
Attempting to still make a joke
Of shunned fire without smoke

“By god! the Farmer had his way,
All he took, he would not sway
But not to cry, he’ll surely stray,
And give up his terrain some day”

Quick I left this place that not
For any living thing begot,
Besides the stillness of the spot,
A single thing to tempt but rot

"You dream of a better day, alone with the moon" (Blixa&Teho)

I want to turn my body into protest, they are killed twice:
by hunger and  by bullets in the middle of  hunger
hatred is an invasive species, mistletoe  in reversed veins
I can see how thoughts fracture in the middle of sentence,  unrecognizable streets pose symmetrical questions
how can this be or is this all that can be
how much patience the pain has
death is like Schrodinger's cat,
it can be simultaneously here and there
a surreal space exists where time can't be saved
an invisible hand recycles genesis, invokes innocent beasts
time doesn't pass through all the layers of pain
some are turned into a certain sky, others into frozen movement, another into the fertile soil for growing wings  with which one cannot fly because the wind has not yet been invented

What if life was a match
struck in darkness
that brief, burning moment
as the flame grows
baptising all it touches
with its blessed light.

Even as the snuffer looms,
deaths cap leaves behind
a smouldering ember,
and as it all cools down
I can somehow still feel
the warmth.

If time was kinder
I'd keep the flame burning,
but since it will not yield,
I'll love and remember
the glow long after
the flame has died.

©️Lizzie Bevis

Maria
tells me
to come to Madrid

Sit in the pews
de la Real de la Almudena
with shadows
and ghosts

Maria,
lighting candles—
Extinguished souls:
done begging,
just burning through the skin.
Aching
in the bone.

Maria,
Santa Maria—
can’t save
you
or me
or us

I'm just trying my best
To hold it together...
But—

Maria—
persecute the saints,
    I'll be in the Moulin Rouge—
free the sinners

Maria
tells me
to come to Madrid

Santa Maria—

Maria...