Kicked to the earth by aeroplane blade
Question mark neck
Stretched, frantic to rise
Leg sheared off condemns it to die
Pink and white
Stained, tattered and the blood
And the mud
Encrusted with quills
Pockmarked with a scimitar bill
(A useless lever -
The body rolls
Like a drunken sailor)
Too cowardly to grant it
A merciful strangle
We turned it instead
For final red stare
At the eye of darkness
In the sunset glare.
Sags your freedom
Folds up your fun
Obliged to stand guard
For your money's worth of sun.
Plunge to the core of a razor-cold insight,
Immersed in the soothing waters of beyond.
Spiral down through the murky whorl,
Reach out your hands to the knowledge of night
And hold the heart of the silent pool.
Floating now, inscrutable calmness.
Ripples in rows roll themselves smooth.
The surface shifts are meaningless
As the frozen heart watches from worlds far removed.
The earth is reluctant to slip from the sun,
Her armpit-tuft grass held above waterline
Shivers in fear - she submits, but would run
From the cold water licking her hot harlot sides.
Terror of dark depths
In their stillness;
From this moves our world.
From this grows our illness.
Puts water in your eye
The deeper you cut
The harder you cry
My shroud, caught on a rusty nail
Unravels like a party streamer,
Spins me up and away from the steamer.
Soaring higher than a skyscraper
I swing on the breeze like a piece of paper.
Naked I laugh like thunder,
A cry that rents my past asunder,
I scorn the ship - a floating grave -
And plummet joyous into the waves.
