Copybook Headings

The bitter black reaches back, 

smokey tendrils coil, 

sickly sweet suffocation, 

fall down the well. 

 

Into the looking glass, 

Narcisi’s backwards twin staring back into you; 

hand in hand with the abyss, 

don’t step on a crack as you skip up to the edge. 

 

The tide comes back in, 

covering the holes, 

hiding the unclean, 

leaving nothing in its wake. 

 

Another day left to ponder the unanswerable questions, 

look into the sun, 

let your eyes go blind, 

turn to ash, 

save them for the epitaph that never came. 

 

Face down in the water, 

no apples to be found. 

 

Crack the easel 

punch holes through the drawing rooms walls, 

their is no returning. 

Join the rank and file, 

become somebody I use to know; 

discretion has no point 

valor burnout like mist on a hot summer day. 

 

Doors leading to nowhere 

close before you one by one, 

the choices winnow down 

until what remains is only obvious, 

the end is always near 

beginnings never linger. 

 

It’s this incessant desire, 

the scream lingering at the back of the throat, 

the whole that never fills; 

the gold is pealing from the bricks, 

its only at the end 

you find the road was always one way. 

 

Once the lighting has escaped 

you’ll never coaxes it back in, 

Pandora’s box remains empty; 

take your seat on the broken throne, 

let the music play 

the ashes gather at your feet.

 

Kipling’s God’s were correct again.