I have not come all this way to harm you
But only to reach for your mind
To fold you in and lock you down
And bend you back to purpose.
I was sent to find your deadringer's face
For I know you heard his call
I know his words marked you
Eternally as one of his own.
You heard his voice swell like the waves of the ocean,
Or a field of corn thrashed by a storm
It had the power to reach across time and seas
Cerebral ****** of ire and unease
And into this cold, forbidding place,
From beyond the grave he sent you his face
You lift your gaze like a demigod
Oh, yes, you know who you remind me of.

Do not believe the sky cannot fall
It can dip and swoop a
Grey embrace like a silent bow
Wind itself in sinless frottage
Through mountains and hills
Across high exposed ground
Misty and mizzled through autumn trees
That stand bright and begowned
In their tiger's eye leaves
The geese are not fazed
They cut through its wrap
Ragged line, briefly seen
Before they pass back through
The solemn grey cloak
Its tendrils swirling
It chokes out the sun and
The night comes down early
The high blues of June
Almost hard to remember
As you walk through the
Fallen skies of November

That time again
Leaves have fallen
Gathered and clustered
Curled in lane corners their
Lifeless backs to the curb
Still too slape
And limp to crunch
Lying and waiting as
Winter creeps closer
Night by night
In the darkening months.

Thick helping of camaraderie
Light dressing of distrust
A hint of dreams that died
And shrivelled down to dust in the
Land of soulless buildings under
Bitter snow-filled sky
A serving of suspicion
Furtive glances on the side
Evening draws in early and it maybe masks a threat
The deadringer takes a long drag on his cigarette
The lads are getting loud, already drunk and singing
But they still have an ear out
Above the beer mugs brimming
All is going well and
Things seems so auspicious
But they'll turn on a pinhead if
Someone says something suspicious.

You have seen more of them than
I have in the darkness of the desert's
All embracing blanket of night
Galaxy arm curving out in
A massive soup spill of stars
I know only these local skies
Over trees sighing, unwilling  
To relinquish the summer
Swift drop of darkness
Vast red swathe of cloud
Fades to pink then grey
Light slipping west
Slipping away
Ragged line of geese pass calling
Into the last band of fading light
That swallows them, dims and sinks
The night gathers strength and deepens and
Antares gives us a red eyed blink.

Beware the dusk, about this time
She tends to break her tether
Trot unfettered in the half light
More softly than her night time rages
She can come with stealth.
Beware the dusk.  Last night this time
It softly wrapped its grey embrace
She came over the barley fields
And nosed through the hemlock
She reared at the Corn Wolf but
He nipped her in the fetlock and
Undeterred she trotted forth and leapt
The hedge, its ruddy haws ripening
In the autumn stillness
Beware the dusk, beware the dawn
From shadowy herds her misty foals
May prance high in the morning dew
Through fields, through time,
Through dusk, through dreams
And they may darkly visit you.

I half woke to her rhythm increasingly strong
A pounding in the distance and a presence very wrong
Then I recognised the noise of the galloping hooves
I feared for my soul but my body wouldn't move
She came with a bound over moors, over gorse
It was the night the sheep learned that the Devil has a horse
Half asleep half awake I was locked in a transition
Of hynopompic trance with a black satin apparition
Her mane was all dressed in a web of darkling stars her
Black hooves set with ragged bloodtipped barbs
She neighed and threw a shockwave like a blast of shuddering thunder
That could knock you down before her malice ploughs you under
He'd left his abode so she didn't come alone
And the sudden chill was cutting to the bone
Her rider pulled the rein in his black gloved hands
She turned and bared her teeth and I saw that they were fangs
But before she could gallop back home in Hell's direction
The rider gave a glare and shot me a question
"You can see me!" he exclaimed,  "What substance are you on?"
"Cheese," I said, "so ** you and the horse you just rode in on."