1.
Silver branches, singing reeds, turning bridges, she silences sound.
Twisting wind, weave coils, crumble black bread; she stanches blood.
Forbidden tears, wrecked shadow, gusts of breath; there, the fisher of death.
The undertow swims on, no one hears the deep song of regret.
Senseless feet, hand distorted, ink of spirit, colourless gum.
On her brow’s slope a grooved line; in her heaven-less eyes, a preface to her passing.
Roused blood, ice-bound dreams measured in the pale desert.
A mirror full of hidden desire, all the spent cases, tattered ardour. All the loves, hatreds, unspooled.
Naked empty breasts, sunken heads, shoulders stooped, stomach ravaged underground.
His dark intentions in this crumbling age.
She is locked away, what does it mean in the end; hunger and despair?
Can I say what I want to say, she asks, her heart a mere flutter in the wind.
See her dark hair waxen, reflected in a morning tide.
2.
Coarse smell of cigars, dead leaves, buried fire.
Shattered sun rays weave a veil of fear.
Ray of honey wax, bitter drop of her heart.
Always immovable death, voracious in its feeding.
A hand weighs on her heart; she cannot return.
Face covered with salt, flee the world, no place to go.
Search light, search shadows, search pity, impossible echo.
The song of exile.
Dust earth spinning till the end.
Morning feint blue, ember sunset, eyeless, shard dreams, illusion spills like slime over the street.
She’s distressed, empty words hang.
Take your measure on the hard knotted rope.
Twist her covered mouth bite the cords, cry.
Sleep until the next siren call.
So many false exits in this underground labyrinth.
Meet at the port; who departs tomorrow on what vain swell only to return to ashes in the stove?
Unextinguished sorrow, no flame, no earth, no heaven, no echo, nothing real, she cries.
All broken the bonds of hope. Prisoned by a fatal wing.
Caught in wire torn, non comprehending, sitting, standing, lost in the house of incoherence.
No memory, vague boundaries blurring hands, try to catch reflections slipping away.
No breath to catch again.
Race against current circuit of veins, unforgiving flight of drones.
Windows closed in an isolation cell, no perfume from the cellar, water flows downstairs, shadows disappear.
If she is seen on the thankless forever light-less earth.
If she’s heard through the thickness, it’s not her voice that’s heard, it’s her wound.
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Words: Colin Campbell Robinson
Images: Jude Robinson
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