The flame of autumn

Curls and licks skeletal trees

And leaves charred remains

I could choke again

And I broke even back then

I am falling down

Try to untangle

The place I find myself, from

Where I want to be

Into cloudlit skies

Startlings flock and grainly rise

Sighting up sore eyes

While we stand and stare

Frost cleaves to each edge like hair

Autumn leaves us bare

Open wide those eyes

Let the light work it’s magic

Fill your searching mind

What was once a dream

Comes to life before my eyes

Never stop making

Living underground

Crawling towards vital sounds

In my loamy gown

Scurry across lawns

Hunt for a prickly hedgerow

To keep off the rain

Peeping though ivy

A world that is lost to me

Never stationary

To which distant lands

Do you soar and sail and fight

Through the roaring wind?

My joints ache and groan

I’m a heap of broken bones

My heart turns to stone

Where will whipping winds

Drive us on billowing sails?

When will this ship land?

Whether gold or grey

In the east, in the morning

The same sun will rise

Weaving with the mulch

Transforming death into life

Myceliously

Though I reach upward

Trying to exceed my grasp

I remain grounded

They can’t hide behind

The overgrown waterways

Industrial eyes

Crawl inside myself

Words can do no harm if I

Keep them in this cave

Am I the grey cloud

Or the azure atmosphere

Shimmering beyond?

What lurks beneath

The murk and the mouldy leaves?

I see only sky

As the morning blooms

We ravel and unravel

Open to the sun

Fight against the clock

Race the ever pressing tide

Holding back the sand

The things you expect

Twist and turn and bind like chains

And become regret