Birds Elope With The Sun - The Agonist

A velvet quietus furtively draped over ears.

Quartz underfoot and crystalline opal tears

Welcoming webs of gasping despair

Nival anaphora textures the air.

Anamnesis waltzes through…

The windows, shut tight, and the fires are fueled…

Reminding naiveté of its magnitude’s inferiority.

Skyward stretching arms become thin and weak.

Bony fingers comb the clouds

then curl into fists, admitting defeat.

Blood concedes to gravity’s pull,

leaving hollow skeletons all erect,

perforating the skyline — an impenetrable cage…

like skin drawn tight, and canvas cracked with age.

Escapist flights and lengthy nights

as some succumb to slumber awakes…

Faces count minutes 'till noon

Solar ghosts come kiss the moon goodnight

Grey memories for now.

A thousand families, down, will fall.

Nival tears bury them all!

Like absconding tides, birds elope with the sun.

A barren desert soaked in bleach

A sickly pallor and opal touch

Hallucinating, shattered glass

falls as if the atmosphere cracked

and we are invaded by emptiness blank.

The brain keeps the body company.

The continent is a newborn, trying to breathe.

Accepting his fate and falling asleep,

the child is woman, resting in peace.

(Accepting the sleep as a blackness

forcing its way in and pushing air out through heavy lungs…

And heavy are the clouds that reach so deep

and smother the land in a heavy shroud.

Eyes press closed and words are now visible.)

The sky is an eggshell waiting to hatch.

The ground is the air, the wind, the trees,

the Earth, the water, the fire.

Sculptors working the clay, carving angels

and gargoyles and columns

as pixies dance to appease the leaves.

Faces that once turned to catch the light

frown and turn desperately down towards darkness.

Float to the stiff, grey earth.

Faces count minutes…