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Joel Hayward Apr 2016
Wickedness dances like a Chinese dragon
held high on poles by the grinning

It curls its tail and snakes around the minds
of admirers who see beauty in its gaping jaws

Flaccid and incapable, this billowing beast
intoxicates and seduces the frustrated and resentful

It dances in Kirachi, hoodwinks in Bradford,
and slips into the dark places in distracted minds

— this infernal idea more bilious and mephitic
than a komodo’s bite

It dances wildly in the confused thoughts of lost boys
who haven’t noticed its cunning wink

They sway and rock — utterly taken
far more mistaken — until stilled by the slap of death
Prabhu Iyer Aug 2015
Bleak the rays shattered through broken panes
life, dust, dust,  future and smoke
automobiles and gunshots solitary this hour
when screams rend the air, not my turn today -
no, not as yet. Mother, I want to rest my head
in your lap. Can I weep?

Cactus in my soul, I ask, Can I, all that I am?
Lust is the death of man. Gouge your eye that lusts.
Broken void of my afterdays, that mourn
like the wind on the dunes


         Mother, I am well. There is love, there is hope, light
         hidden like nuggets in piles of the dark.
         Mother, I must be well.

It was the other night. Nightmare in loop.
Shamed, stripped beaten violated.
I am in a well, deep pit, drained
of all the essence of light
I can hear your voice echoing with the ray
shattered tumbling down the walls

free, free I am the wind mourning in the dunes
can you tame the wind?


        In the depths, and in the deaths islanding life
        mirage of oases, Mother, I have found him,
        my Senor, to whom I give my ring

Violate me, visage of the abyss,
burn me, but can you find me?
beat me, chain me, but can you enslave me?
I am not here in these nerves and veins.
I am all of Augusta, America,
I fly in the Masts above the skies

Sweet Lord, I see you have deemed heaven
for me, no purgatory but here.
I accept, I surrender, I submit. To thy will.


            Mother, do not negotiate. I am strong.

Where in my naked body have you found me?
here, in these bruises, have your embers soothed?
I am the Lamb that does not cower.
I haunt your soul as guilt.
In what little's left of it.

He finds you in the catacombs where
I haunt the crypts that no vicar penetrates.
When all is lost, when death is certain at the sea,
there opens a way and I will walk out


           Mother, I am coming. Have faith, for faith maketh.
           I hold you here in my *****, smouldering pain,
           that gets me to wake every haunting day.
           Every day that brings the sound of darkness home.

*I fly in the Masts above the skies.
Tame me, I am the wind breaking the dunes.
Ilohi, lema sebachtani sebachtani
For Kayla Mueller, the brave young American aidworker who was repeatedly ***** and then killed by ISIL terrorist organisation: abcnews.go.com/International/kayla-mueller-american-isis-captive-wrote-letter-family/story?id=28859102

'I hold you here in my *****/ smouldering pain, that gets me to wake/ every haunting day': paraphrases Kayla's letter, excerpt -

'...I wrote a song some months ago that says, “The part of me that pains the most also gets me out of bed, w/out your hope there would be nothing left…” aka -­ The thought of your pain is the source of my own, simultaneously the hope of our reunion is the source of my strength...'

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— The End —