1. THE TRUE MARCH

Beneath the burning sky, dust choked air
Horizon to horizon, in a river of stumbling footsteps
We are walking
We are a trail of blood and tears
A single suffering entity, that stretches from sky to sky
That slithers with languid motion, shedding dead skin.

Somewhere
Back there beyond the horizon when this exodus began
We grimly bore the weight of precious anchors.

Bleeding feet and aching bones
Mouths parched from days of wasted tears
We no longer feel the sound of weeping children
We no longer feel
We are walking - alive, numb, and blind.

Treasure and trinket, memento and remnant
Now our shoulders are round from the burden of the dying
Our heads are stooped with the burden of the discarded dead.

The long march from a long forgotten past
We remember only a hundred thousand footsteps.

The past has bled us here
We are distant from her ruined womb
Reborn as infants in a storm of smoke and fire
Screaming, blind, on hands and knees we emerged
From our crushed chrysalis, bleeding and broken
Crawling creatures without wings.

From this unending horror, we heal into twisted shapes
Swathed in keloidal scars
Misshapen forms seeking for shelter
For nourishment in endless desolation
Like the final trickle of a distant flood
We are putrid remnants, stained by the endless miles.


2. EMPTY PLACES

Civilization deconstructed piece by piece
Thrones melted into axe and plough
Babes swaddles in shreds of gowns
Fortress walls splintered into sticks and tinder
Embers of burning books rise with their meagre warmth.

Darkness within the empty places
The smouldering shells of modest castles
Dusty shards cling in battered window frames
Gutted carcasses of a close, forgotten past.

We walk through remnants of shattered panes
Blades of glass ground to dust
By the dragging of a million aching feet
And their tattered soles.

Wind shakes the skeletal remains of walls
And gaping, twisted architraves
Cupboards are bare, shattered shelves collapsing
There is nothing here but haunted silence.

And in the daylight, we fear the empty places
The smouldering shells of modest castles
Where dusty shards cling in battered window frames
The gutted carcasses of our close, forgotten past

In the fearful night, we seek shelter
Beneath the rotting beams like crumbling bones
Walls like tattered skin
And with the rats and mice, we claw through debris
Like worms we infest and consume
The remains of our crushed cocoon, mutilated womb.


3. TO YOUR FATE

I hoped that you would die, in the night
In the cradle of sleep, in the forgiving darkness
Your eyes closed, resigned to your terrible fate.

But in the grey dawn
Before the sun looks upon us
With her cruel and ceaseless rage
I see gentle light touch your eyes

You look to me for comfort, but I ache
And we tangle together our withering bones
In a painful palliative embrace

So many times you have carried me
I clung to your strength, your patience
Stealing the warmth from your blood
And the breath from your lips.

You look to me for strength, but I am weak
If I had tears to cry
I would let them fall to your parched lips.

Something compels me
To stumble on and die alone
Primal delusion of hope
Drags me away, pushes me on, eviscerated
And trailing my spirit behind me.

I hoped that you would die
In the night
I kiss your eyelids, to close your tired eyes
Do not see me leave you to your fate.


4. REFLECTIONS IN SHATTERED GLASS

In the dark, where weary faces glow
Heavy shoulders draw down to the warmth of dying embers
There is comfort and there is time, to remember...

A city seething, the masses screaming
A chorus of urgent voices, noises, colour and light
All drowned in an instant
By the almighty roar of some sudden silence
Horrible lack of motion, aghast pause
Something monstrous kicked the city
Like the dusty castle of a termite nest, it burst apart
Deaf, dumb, and blind, we scattered.

The earth shook, we felt it in our bones
It shook with our voices, our terror and motion

And the earth spoke, great steel towers groaned
Like the maggots in a rotting carcass
It burst apart
And we spilled out

A writhing, flailing mass
In a million directions we scattered
Between the smouldering piles, the spitting pipes

And drains, that bled red
We saw people, faces in the dust and smoke
And we passed them by.

We turn our backs to the warmth
Do not stoke the fire for the luxury of reflections
In shattered glass, our bloody past
Turn into the cold and dark, feel the hollow of our stomachs
Let open wounds consume these wounds we will not feel

Expose us
Make us fear
And see how we all fall apart
Stunned like birds in a cage
We leapt and fell
Thrashing our wings - we plummet still.


5. RECLAIMED BY DUST

I taste the dust
But I don’t remember falling
The earth is like a cradle
As passing footsteps murmur a lullaby
I am staring blind into the flickering sun
As merciful shadows pass
My fingers crawl across the dirt
Reaching out for those dark shapes
A hand takes my hand and they carry me

My bleeding throat tastes of rust
I don’t remember falling
My broken lips are weeping
I press on my aching knees

Ribbons of ragged skin and flesh
Trail from beneath the tattered soles
Of my feet, when my legs kick
Weakly and fearful of the pain
Searching for purchase in the burning dust.

I am breathing the dust
And I am falling
Sinking into the dust
The heat of the sun tempered
As the light becomes distant
A hand reaches for my hand
But I drag my gnarled bones to my chest
And let them leave me to my fate
Atrophied, I am drifting away from pain
To be reclaimed by dust.