Walking a tightrope made of thread
Isn't my idea of a balancing act
I am not dreading the fall
I've come to expect nothing less

And now I'm caught in a Dread Lock,
Cause if Marleys to be believed then
"None but ourselves can free our minds"
But am I myself?
Am I being deceived by mine?
Mixed signals being received by mine.
tells me I'm fine,
But what if I'm not?
I'm scared to stop.
In possession of past lessons
I'm scared to stop.
But I'm lost
Paths hidden
But I tread on
Scared to stop.
Shadows thought ridden
Stalk me.
Turn round?
I dare not,
scared to stop.
Can I control it this time?
Doubt chimes.
Cornerstone of my downfall
Is doubts chime.
I'm Running out of time
Running I fall in slow motion
Tidal wave of emotion
about to hit
But am I fit to deal with it?
Last time I drowned in it.
Swallowed me up for years
I Disappeared
Overshadowed by fears
In despair I'd sit.
Can I beat it this time?
Defeat it this time?
Or will my life be on repeat
For all time?
Will I find I'm
Confined to a mind
I cannot control?
Emotions take hold.
Frozen to the spot
But I'm scared to stop!
I'm scared to stop
Cause if I do IT might catch me up...

Deep in the screws of his lonely keep,
Waiting for word of a land promised,
Sentinel man watches across the sea
Never knowing faith was so dishonest.
Across the sea of doom lies his joy,
What awe, so spindrift were his days
And what lay behind was no corridor
And all his dreaming has left no ways
Forward, but to sink with hapless sorrow                                                      
And flowing to the thirsty ocean seas,
He pours another drink, toasts tomorrow
And all the empty horizons of history.
Spiraling down he leaves his diggs,
Praying, death be not a doornail's rig.

I've been alone for so long I'm forgetting how to cope with the inevitable sense of dread I swallow when I finally lay in bed.

1

The chards rising.  Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.


2

I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.


3

Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.

Hard rain tapping head  .  .  .
Winter gales come from nowhere,
  .  .  .  What are they saying?

.
Others would scream,
The burning, the flame—
Such seering cold and hollow
Open grave, if they could ever
Breathe in as the dirt piled on
And the graveyard rushed, fell
To bury all that was, doffed flesh
My torment and pain, of my loss,
A name as even the wind forgot
As it wailed, lost, lone, keening
After banshee had spoken,
No— in my skin, others
Would pray, forgive.

Rain fell in commotions—
The birds would have none of it,
The moon bellowed in ghostly white,
Faced in the sprite, ringing indifference
Of low fading stars, trees in posted dark
Scratched the grasslands of the fallen
Firmaments and the small creatures
That are holed up in days, scurried
With the creep of night and moan
Of oceans slide, mangled clouds
Clutched the murky burn of sky
And smallish eyes everywhen
Shuddered in the frosts
Of a shuttering rose.