The Shadows of Light I awoke one night to a haunted vision Of many a glowing apparition. They shone like beacons of ghastly light, - Polka-dots against the canvas night, - In numbers I could never count, In hundreds I dared not surmount, And merely ambled; hovered, so, With dark expressions I dreamed not know. Above, beyond the shadow storms From whence the rain and thunder forms, These haunted visions poured as legion Down upon this wooded region And wailed their countless, sorry woes And flailed amidst their deathly throes, Until I stopped and watched no more The pangs of suffering they wore Within their cold and sad demise, - Within those glowing, brimstone eyes, - And wept with horror beneath their gaze, Knowing then what sorrow weighs. O’ angel, o’ grief-tormented soul, You who are lost where’re you stroll: This surf, this land to where you chase Is nothing more than a woeful place, And I, the dreamer unlucky to dream you, Who hath your countenance in view, Know little as to why you haunt this wood And cannot help, though wish I could.

Through The Veil My travels led me to a distant path Surrounded by the devil’s wrath. It was a lonesome road with a gusty gale Upon which sunshine had long set sail. A path of only gloom and despair And fear hanging in the air. I wandered further down this route As my thoughts clouded thick with doubt, As shadows trailed my every move Deep in the rocks, in every groove. In my ears, a slither of voice Whispered thoughts of sinful choice, Which led me blind, far down the track Towards a distant veil of black. A figment or something truly real, Corporeal enough for my flesh to feel, A velvet drape of shadows and ends, Knowing not to what world it sends. I ventured forth, drew very near, Watched it ripple, watched it clear . It led to a chasm, a cosmic Earth, Vacant of #life or human birth. A desolate grave, a ravaged land Marked cruelly by a devil’s brand. Dust, decay and death abound, Flesh and bone found all around. Sheets of white from a haunted past Greeted me as I arrived aghast. These ghouls and ghosts before me shown, In their shrouded forms would wail and moan, Would pass me by most melancholy. Old friends, now foes of most unholy, Far from heaven and its heavenly hand To wander eternal in a devil’s land.

Shadow Puppets Her fingers, held high above her head, stepped delicately between the wan shafts of light. They sang of dreams and thrummed with the rapture of hope. They danced on shadow. She watched them pirouette and waltz amidst the airy specks of dust. Every flourish and flick of the wrist graceful and raw - passionate and loving. Each leapt across their shimmering spotlights and danced like nothing else in the world mattered; like nothing ever had. Only the dust that swam in the air like starry constellations against the dark, expansive backdrop of the tiny room and the faint beams of sunlight that traced their every move. These shadow dancers and their dusty stage - her entire dusty world. Then, all too soon, the lights began to fade, seeping back through the wooden slats like the pale ghosts of moonlight. She watched them go as all her little shadow dancers curled out of sight.

The Cave In a dream, I wandered to a maw of stone where my light danced the rocks and my feet carried deep into the lonely dark. Tunnels twisted in the granite and I walked them like a pilgrim lost until I found the centre of the veins and arteries in a chamber where water dripped from wet walls and cried in the gravel. A creature lay shrivelled in the dark, its form twisted and bestial and it stared into the light with eyes dead and as white as the achromic bones that shone through its translucent skin. A heart thumped in a bloodless chest. A brain throbbed in a nerveless head. The creature shook in the cold and let out a pained moan. I asked: ‘will it always hurt?’ It did not hear. It did not speak. It turned its sightless eyes from the light and raised itself on wasted limbs to limp deeper into that lonely dark.

To Be Still We once danced in that bandstand  by the park, not minding the chill. Autumn leaves swept at  our feet as we stepped here and there and the fog of our breaths mixed with the incandescence of streetlights. Your hair glowed in the dark as it whirled and like a puppeteer and its puppet, you twirled from the strings of my arms lost in the music of the moment, and I watched the step of our shoes, one two, one two three, afraid to be lost in the pace of you. You took hold of my face to gaze with two indigo blues and said: 'it's okay to be lost it's okay to forget it's okay to be still', and I knew those words to be true. To be gospel. We unfurled in that bandstand by the park and were lost. We forgot and were still until the rain clouds filled and poured free. Heading home, we ran with the laughter that lovers laugh, we danced on the sidewalks the way lovers dance. I spun you from my arms with no thread or  string to hold you and watched you pirouette in puddles and gutters, one two, one two three, the wide road a stage to be lost in. I watched you unfurl in the chill of the rain and in the ghostly glow of headlights from a passing car as they poured over and through you and you broke the way a lover breaks, and you forgot and went still.