The shapes of sleep

Day smoke that flows throughout our waking hours
released to tease and twist our darkling thoughts to landscapes, cities of the quiet mind

Shadow towers defined by nothing more than fancy and a little fact
the unassuming act of pressing day on night

Unconscious distant learning stoked by fear to feed and keep its belly still, and a little yearning when we need it

Our treasures taken from that mental box we keep

unlocked, explored and plundered deep

The grey and somewhat shop - worn curtains, covering the shapes of sleep

We hunger when the grey doubt wolves are prowling around our doors, sniffing at the latches as we crouch inside

Our ears are stuffed with hopeful thoughts because their song is one of want and we cannot ignore their dreadful music

The newly  ******, searching for a light that won't be found

Chasing every spark, in search of faint salvation for our fragile shrunken world but mostly for ourselves

Stitched with good time memories and thoughts of better days to come

Thrown shadows, lit large on walls that once we thought were strong have lost their charm and turned from fortress into prison where we hold the keys to melted locks

Ravening, for days not so long passed when we were free to live in this tattered world of haves and have nots, when all are hungry the howling begins

Peace is an early morning

Dare you break the silence with your footsteps on the grass

Spiders weaving cobwebs case their industry and listen to the nothing, dewdrop heavy

Rabbits out for early breakfast halt their chewing mouths and wait in expectation

Frozen cracking trees still their restless branches for a while and the river runs slow, no trickling streams to signify its presence

Trout swim in the shallows

Gentle watchers of the newborn day

A sky of painted rain from custard yellow clouds, fell beyond my gallery window glass.

The grass a silken thread of cinnamon fire, vermillion and orange tea brewed strong and hot, which ran to choppy rivers damson plum and vintage flowing wine, stretched far beyond my own imagining
to boiling seas of unknown hue.

Did a morning ever dawn which held such colour and such light, If so it isn’t one I ever knew!

If only I had wings to fly
The sky would not hold me
I would be so much more
Than a bird who could swoop and soar, and twist and dive
Alive, at one with spirits of the air
To drop each care
And watch it fall, like silent drifting feathers to the ground
Could there be a peace more sacred and profound

Teeth in jaws that snap

Beyond the tongue that twists and winds

The trap that binds you to your word

Once beyond those tombstone markers to the world

All hope is lost for yet another lie uncurled

To wind itself like smoke

To choke and wrap around your slender throat

To make you wish you never spoke a single scarlet word

And those you hurt had never even heard!

The world took a break

Traffic stilled, just the dark rope of empty roads stretching for miles

Birds sang in the trees

No planes flew

People didn't rest

They sat in their houses and  didn't sleep, no matter how calm the world outside the window

We worried and wished and waited for it all to be over

For the planet to wake up

So that we could go to bed

Hark to the winds of Autumn
Long dead voices raised in song
Saraband for the living
A choir for the dying
Eternal music of the ******
A fading year
Carried on the breeze

Do not cry for those who have gone
Make a better world for those who are to come.
Do not put your faith in shadows of the past
Step into the light and let them see you shine
Do not curse the broken time in which we live
Race both hands to mend the clock
Do not be scared of the future
Let the future be afraid instead
You have the power to change it
If you will but try

We are all dust.

Mere chaff blown on the hot winds of an African summer long ago,
when the world was fresh and humanity still sailed on clouds of air we soared above the baking earth and knew the freedom of the stars, not tethered to the ground in bonds of flesh and bone.

Dust we were and dust we will become again, in the end it's all the same.

Just dust!

To be a writer
Is to burn with words,
tiny living birds risen from our ash and dust, because we must.
We take a part of ourselves and give so that we can live and fly and fill the smoky amber coloured sky with wings,
although we know not why.

Everything bends to the singing wind

Frozen trees brittle and dark

Stark

Naked on hard and barren fields

All is sleeping

Resting in the cold

Fences crack

Rabbits nibble at freezing grass

Breaths frost the crystal air in hope of thaw

Silence rings

A cracking twig

Splits the purity a little

A pistol shot of noise

On a winter afternoon

Look at any window

lights without blinds

other peoples tables

snatched fragments of their lives

gone in a moment

forgotten

maybe they wonder all about you

in the reflection of your passing car

caught in the tail lights of a memory.

Let green grass cover you

A daisy covered cape of spring

One last growing living thing

A counterpane of flowers

To mark away the hours, months and  years

Until the tears run dry

On the earth in which you lie