LIFE SENTENCE

Amidst the marks of mucked up memories

There are several I will never

Novate nor sever.

They clustered when they careened

And crashed into my expectations.

Faking fun you flirted forever,

Far away from friendship,

Flinging my fragile affection

Into fiery flames

That I never ever fully forgot.

I know now that you used me

And I was ripe to be ruined.

Youthful beyond your years,

Yearning ‘til younger eyes

Made my head turn

Tired, tearful and trapped.

Yet we dared into dreams,

Dramatised and documented.

Drifting and drooping,

Dreariness dogged our days,

Until a dangerous damsel decoupled us.

Slipping into my slumbers,

Snaking around my soul,

Slithering inside my slender veins,

You enslaved me,

Splendid serpent,

Soothed me and slid away.

From then on I was spent,

Though I thought otherwise.

Still now I prize your poison,

Relishing its rough reminders,

And drinking every drip and drop
Before they mar my empty mouth.

JUDGED

Auburn semi-desert,

Tired under the bleak sky.

A tattered terrain

Willing itself into existence

For billions of years

Has finally collapsed to near nothingness.

Flat, it goes on,

Seemingly forever.

Only random mounds

Of oddly rounded rubble

Punctuate the predictability.

Like it, I am nearing exhaustion.

My feet are wounded

From the rubbing of silicon sandals.

Gritty dust works like powdered emery

On blisters that burst long ago.

I escaped - 

Daring and exhilarating -

But the onset of weariness

Caught me by surprise.

I need to pace myself.

I need to rest.

I need to lean

Against any rotting edifice.

Disturbed, a dusky cockroach

Scrabbles its way between the cracks,

With an alert antenna visible,

Twitching in the weak sunlight.

Survivor of the judgement,

Just like me.

Survivors devour survivors to survive.

Food is food.

As a penalty for its stupid curiosity,

I capture the creature.

My meal wriggles, frantic, its extremes visible

In my clenched fist.

COASTAL GHOSTS

I love the lunging growl of the shorebreak

In the last moments of wakeful still night.

It sings sweet songs of years long gone and dead

And comforts me, soothing my splintered plight.

Waves roll and thump and then the sea turns mute

Before the next set crashes and crumbles

Across wet sands of sounds and murmurings,

Rocking rigid stars with rage and rumbles.

But in my lonely bed all noise abates

As my eyes close to see a smiling face;

And your laughing voice drowns out all rivals -

Only sound sleep disperses our embrace.