Emerging from the void and
crawling dead along the twilight line
dripping wet and sea weed hair.
All down the opaque shore a cry
of the death wind, growing in a lion’s mouth,
as, the one lung, long tongue
blood, red infant screams from
his lung like a wound.
The powder grey sky turns
star shaped pearl like eyes
to watch the clumsy progress
of the child like a skeleton ghost
who grows quick in moss
around huddled shoulders and
a long curve of back. Slow
growing limbs, popping toes
and restless fingers that scratch on
the morning face of the sun screen wall
of hollow naked grey.
The crying now loud blowing
high from teeth that have found solid rock
where a teething ring should have been.
This colour blind child in a world pleasant green
grew clever forging vowels in a waterfall frock,
grew crafty and mean without ever knowing
that the weight and the sway
of his fatal flint footmen would precede the fall
of a Lucifer angel from the gentle seat of dawn
and witless turn nature’s friends to other foes,
who would with time, grow small to swallow,
this crafty killer of useful land
who is unable to measure his loss,
this clever phrase coiner who turns words to boast
of his flirtation with a fool called progress,
this religious fool bowing to the dollar from his pew sty,
who never learns from the books he burns.
That he should keep a receptive ear tuned
to the words of the blind and the dumb,
to the woes of the dead and unsung
undone in an earlier bout
who now lean from the grave to watch us die
as we lean for them and hollow eyed stare
crawling dead along the twilight line
searching the void with an outstretched hungry hand.

by Ian David Arlett

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