suffused with
spectral footfall
the promenade
fades into grey
winter stone.

With crumbling
smiles, pierrots
sally in monochrome
frames and the
dead bones of
donkeys rise to
cloddy beaches.

Through salt
burned eyes,
torpid seas
heave like heavy
blankets over rusting
lungs; the pulse
of slow decay.

the old man's breath
tears russet pages
from ragged books

Skeletal wooden frames,
    clad in the night’s inky veil

bend and quiver against
    breaths blown from Ural lungs.

Tractors of success rip
    asphalt from dying streets;

while streetlights mourn
    the birth of tomorrow’s decay.

And as two bottles of gin
    sway into each other's way

the stench of ambition’s
    corpse pollutes the air.

The breeze that ripples
through the clematis vine;

shakes the aphid cloak
glutting on its purple pendants.

chestnut mushrooms
seasoned by springs sweet rainfall
chatter on tongues

Lime –
virid
plum-shaped gem;
citrus drizzle
flows.

Stare
at the
universe;
backlit pinpricks
on card. Cosmic children in playful ruse.