Brewing Gold

Every night, I looked up
and words slithered down
glistening arches of cloud,
indulgent stars
dotted every ‘i’,
moods bathed in the wind,
like virgin brides,
throwing bouquets of orange and blue;
the shivering alchemy
of soul and silver moonlight
bubbled into another golden dawn.

Every night, I looked up,
and the sky wrote my poems,
the sky that could have touched me,
the sky that could have loved me,
the sky with cold arms, just out of reach.
So I sat upon a toadstool cloud,
tepid suns warming my feet,
bird shadows fluttering across my page,
my back against the curve of the moon,
and begged the earth to be my muse.

But this earth, this old earth is dying;
her soft light entombs
another young shroud
where there should be no more;
along arches of starving bellies,
through red tongues of gunfire,
among pitiless human hearts
and gluttonous inhuman wars,
my heaving, belching, wheezing earth
writhes like an ageing whore, dying.

Every day, I look down
and hear her denial of despair,
despair that hugs me close
despair that waits at my door,
despair that clings like a lover,
but the earth refuses to write my poems;
this incessant stirring of death and fear,
this boiling cauldron of pain and tears,
I tell her one day they will turn into gold,
we smell the entrails of faith in the brew,
all that could be said lies grey in the embers,
she has not one word left for my poems.

April#7-4/30