sceadugenga

©2005, 2021 Michael Raven

my heart is black, cancerous and decayed…

		tenterhooks, pull back unveil

 		the rent fibres, the judas bonds

	relayed, the crying cradled child

what tension, my aching soul?

	what fugue, my dancing fingers?

the languishing betrays

		secret hanging gardens

			brambled &

				gone to seed…


my heart is grey, ashen and filled with dust…

		a chronic smoker’s ragged cough

		   throwing out

       the blowing desert sands

what vast ocean can quench this thirst?

	what rushing river washes the spasms?

the garden,

		ravished by shadow armies

			laid

				to waste…


my heart is bleeding red, ragged and torn

		cut in velvet and pasted poorly, not sewn

		pierced through and through with hatpins

	beating arrhythmic

broken…

		the garden walls fall in silence

			questions

				unspoken…