Space to be, space for room, space for roots to grow
Space to fulfil the weals of woe, well healed wounds and grow new skin
Space to open curtains of cloth drawn tight around my eyes
Space to lift a veil of grief, scream liberty to the skies
Space to take a path not seen, a path not thought, not heard, not laid
Space to challenge briberies’ queen and refuse the invitation of her grave
Space to fling a word abroad, to speak, lament, proclaim, protest
Space to stand and standing stood, to stand again and grasp my claim to fierce rebut
I believe you not when you try to parry slippery phrases past me
Thinking you can spin plates so fast they’ll fall and crash about my ears
And by their discophany crowd out the truth they seek to hide
Distraction being the action of your whispering aide
for which is paid costly jewels of other’s life
Smoke-screen fiend –
Perhaps you’d like to blast off in your rocket, take the invisible coins in your pocket
into outer-space to carve your place amongst the stars?
Please do –
“We wave you good-bye with gleams in our eye,
shining bright to light the night –
Bravo!”
Said badger, bear, pine marten, hare
and all that frolic, hotten-trot –
“We dance in livery
Of fur and feather
Scales and leathery feet
Clad in claws upon our paws
This place our earthly home”
“Don’t come here any more
Don’t knock on forest door
Don’t walk amongst our leaves
Or look above through green canopied eaves
Don’t smell the earth, musk’en, wet, foraging floor littered humus rich”
For Autumn is the season that ought to teach nature heathen
To thank this their inheritance for breath of life –
Earth is no deity, nor sky nor star nor tree
It is just is
And that is all
Let not this our world become a pall of smoke
Smokey weather fiend –
More from Central Bylines
- Shit creek – Britain’s supply chain crisis is polluting our rivers
- Brexit breaks new hospital build in Birmingham
- Review: WOLK MUSIC by Grant Sharkey
