Wounds

Life leaks more bruises on an autumn wall
Ugly
And squealing
Through it vessels trawl
Butting the tides of ash-water with blood
Dragging in shit-soiled souls with each spent thud
And throwing back love's blisters

This new storm squirms its nullifying scrawl
Across the page of bones on which I crawl
Its maggot tongues slurp marrow as in flood
Life leaks more bruises

And I am tuned with sweat and I am cut
To shape by mechanisms that command
Each net of silence
And I cough on luck
The echo like a pulled tooth in my hands
There is no other way it should be said
Or spluttered out onto the artless sands

I loved my friend and now my friend is dead
His face has slipped like spittle down the walls
I cling to when alone
So I retread
The trackways through this mire
This common sprawl
Of broken shells and brickwork where there flows
No perfect course
I hear no white birds call

I hear no white birds call
I hear no white birds call
I hear no white birds call

The eyes of night peer at me from below
Wishing their wounds into my salted heart
My peace waits far beyond where seagrass grows
But can I reach there?
I shall never know

Life leaks more bruises on an autumn wall
Ugly
And squealing
Through it vessels trawl
Butting the tides of ash-water with blood
Dragging in shit-soiled souls with each spent thud
And throwing back love's blisters for the squall