somewhere
a drowned
man
walks along
the
shore, bemoaning the dry
land on which he
walks. he doesn’t
notice the rank
seaweed caught in his hair
like a beggar’s
crown.

the abortion room
gives up its
dead
while the colour of
blood
is still red
is
red.

a woman sits
alone
wandering in
wit
then walks in a circle
over and over
it
like a
bored
pair of
compasses. her
brain
decomposes,
as a sunken
treasure
rusts slowly away in
stagnant
waters.

in the care home
where the still-
living
slowly expire,
nurses
attend until the
end;
and the end is
fire.

children walk
sideways
on deserted
beaches
like a thousand grey
crabs; looking out to sea,

their eyes, wearing dark glasses, see
not, neither do they hope;
for these, there is no horizon.

an old Priest sits by a two-bar
fire
rubbing his hands to the
bone;
his skeleton wears a purple
stole
which hangs loosely over his
ribcage
like giant clothes on a
dwarf;
the world is too big for

him. his wrinkled brow, like rippled sand
which the waves make bent,
reflects his musings about the Lord, and
what he’ll give up for Lent.

strange fish
swim in
individual
currents
while mermen-
hunters follow them,
blowing their silent
horns…

and the sea
gives up its
dead, its
dead;
many for the
Lord
have bled
have bled.

a soldier
sits
with head
bowed
onto his
knees like an overhanging
rock
in some desert
place
far from
home. his shame is an unscalable
mountain; his duty to be
silent.

it is too late, too
late;
the tide has
gone,
and we must look at
Life through ancient
tapestries.