Three Stairs Creaked

There was the first, then the second; two stairs creaked
Hairs bristle on flesh as anxiety's reached
Reflected an image of a candle wax statue
Empty lost eyes where nothing refracts through
Exhale held breath and tighten a towel
Seek refuge in the warmth of a semi-damp cowl
That was the third! Three stairs creaked!
And now funereal fear has reasoning leeched
Interned by the terror and trapped in a bathroom
Repulsed by the ignorance of what might creep in the vacuum
Sucking in air, now that hysteria's got its hand in
Cloaked in the silence, what lurks on the landing?
Reach out with a clammy hand to the door handle lever
Easing it down with a head burning fever
And now every hair bristles on rippling cold flesh
Knowing, for sure, that madness will quickly infest
Ebbing light flees, to the void, through the door
Dead eyes reflect back, from a life long before...

...sometime, somewhere, three stairs creaked

Ebony Heart

Eddying smoke and mirrors and webs we weave
Brings sorrow from passion, without a reprieve
Our illicit needs are borne, in our ebony heart
Never to be assuaged, but sadly, forever apart
You cannot quench, you can only feed desire
Have hope in a reverie and be a guilty liar
Each tender moment, is too quickly passed
A lover's caress or kiss, might be the last
Repressing our reality, for our ebony heart
That's never forever, but always ardently dark

This Easter

On this irrelevant day today, this Easter, let us not forget

The death and rise of a revenant, as humanity's fate was set

A prayer for the dead and all the innocents suffering

Are the divine on pause, or are they merely buffering?

Feel the tepid warmth of our humanity

As the beasts of war enshroud all clarity

Let us drown in the verse of the epistles

As we gas the children and prime our missiles

On this fanciful day today, this Easter, have we forgot

This rock, this orb of Eden, is mankind's lot

The devil's a despot and no gods exist

And when the insane lead the blind, we should all resist

To Die In Dreams

If you die while dreaming, will you live forever?

To walk beside a sun-kissed coast in a sea of heather

Beyond the temporal grip and any cerebral query

Are there ambrosian tracts of an eternity theory?

Alighted there and aware, but then cast adrift

To be reborn in lustrous warmth from the graveyard shift

Might rainbows rise in the twinkling twilight hours

Above a pastoral swathe of aromatic flowers

All the cryptic wonders as you wander, or simply dither

Nectarous lakes; glass mountains, in a heat haze, quiver

Kings and Queens gambolling on checkered lawns

Bishops in castles, knights scattering pawns...

...And intangible faces from the past and a long lost lover

Melancholic and abstract, detached, in the arms of another

Slippery snakes on slopes; ladders climbing to clouds

Alpacas and llamas, calmly harnessed and pulling on ploughs

Not if, but is, as you stand at the apex of vertiginous cliffs

Towering white sea walls etched with your lives hieroglyphs

And do you hear an angelic choir, or something more appalling?

Drawing you closer to the edge; another step and you're...

...To die in dreams, is to live forever

In surreal scenarios watch the world untether

With a newly found clarity all is seen clearly

As eternity expands beyond any threadbare theory

A Mocking Flock

As I stand upon the country lane

Beyond the hedge is the flock of pain

With a furtive glance back to the farm

My heart is racing, but still I'm calm

With my master nowhere to be seen

I could start work, as I'm very keen

My coat is shiny and my nose is wet

Now into the field I need to get

Across a boggy ditch I need to dredge

To find the gap that's in the hedge

And then I'm through to make my stand

Upon the lambs lush pasture land

Disdainful eyes look upon this collie

Mocking bahs at my brazen folly

Amongst the flock there's an air of scorn

There's no reverence, I feel forlorn

I try to gather, but they disperse

I try a bark, a doggy curse

If they could they'd laugh to mock

One dog; no chance, against the flock

Then upon the lane the sound of a familiar pick-up truck

And if I could curse I'd say what the f..., such bad luck!

As it stops and idles beside the field's gate

My master calls me, but I'm sure he won't berate

Back in the warmth of home I now reflect

That those damn lambs have no respect

But no matter, for it's surely time for lunch

And I'll be back, that's my vengeful hunch

The World Reversed

In a dream, I dream of milling shadows

I follow down corridors with my unturned tarots

I try to find, to reach, to know what's present

But they seem afar 'neath a flickering fluorescent

The Hanged Man's flipped and I throw the card

He floats to a floor, as his eyes regard

I want to seek and find; I want to hide and cower

With failing fortitude I lift and look... it is The Tower

I'm running in reveries to an absorbing umbra

Detached and distant from where I slumber

And now I see the shades of silhouettes all transforming

As the deck in hand radiates heat, to them it's calling

The Hanged Man's flipped and now Death's the card

It floats in flames, to fall and settle, half ash, half charred

And then, The World Reversed, by an open door

With the reality that was, now from a life before

'Twas a dream in a dream of milling shadows

Now I'm here with them and playing from packs of tarots

There's ambient light, a flickering fluorescence

And beyond The Tower, The Moon's a permanent presence

How Will It End?

How will it end? Do you think you need to know?... if so
Open your mind to find, in murky depths, a foreboding show
Without hope I fear, 'tis clear, but you'll find some clarity
With regards to the last breath and death of all humanity
In this pitiless mire immerse your sanity's dread
Look to not what was, but to the end ahead instead...
Locusts swarming over blighted fields of scattered ashes
In desert storms thunder rolls around lightning flashes
The bloated fetid ocean; the heat and acid reigns, nothing hinders
Everything, everywhere, torn asunder and burnt to cinders...
Now take a breath that isn't death, for the air is not yet poisoned
Dwell not in murky depths, arise, with eyes aghast and moistened