Rain pelts down
On the vineyards
Frost coasts the leaves
With an icy sheen
Monasteries sit on the hills
As church spires spike out
Of the impaled forest
Under the dark of cloud
A chapel lies deep underground
Skulls surround the walls
Human chandeliers of bones
Hanging from the ceiling
The ossuary petrifies
Memories to stone
Hundreds of lived lives
And personalities
Reduced to calcium entities
Forgotten in the passage of time.
Poem inspired by Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora, Czechia.
The hands of time
Bloodied fingers
Snapping up the branches
Of a family tree
Another angel taken
By the sledgehammer of life
It’s brutal force
Leaves me spinning
On the freeway at night
The storm was brewing ahead
And I was young and free
Dancing on the edge of a volcano
Trying not to fall in
For time is malleable
And non linear
Stretching and decompressing
Our bodies
With the clench of a fist
Rebuilding ourselves
Fragment by plate
Transforming our experiences
Neuroplasicity to pathway
Through time
White horses
Crash on the shore
As the sun melts
Upon the silver sand dunes
A corps de ballet
Of skeletal beests
Dance across the sand
Elongated legs
Tip toeing
Across the waters edge
Sea dragons flying high
Against the blistering blue
North Sea sky
The creator stands
Applauding his beests
Powered by the wind
Though as the climate begins
To change
Thier movements turn
More rapid and deranged
The beests flying away
Bodies flapping
Violently in the air
Crashing into the sea
Storms pounding their bones
Their habitat slowly erodes
Dragging his creatures
Frantically across the sand
He locks them away
In a beach hut
Under the stars
As night falls
He dreams of a day
The beests can scurry away
Roaming the coast alone
On their multiple feet
Dancing to the rhythm
Of his distant heart beat
Poem dedicated to Theo Jansen.
Soft velvet love lace Wrapped around my shirt Burns my skin like salt Blazing marks begin to hurt Dragged around the rat race Treading wheels begin to screech Digging your claws Into my flaws Let your inner critic preach
Wash the streets of their names
Watch them letters
Fade away
In the electric rain
Ribbons of hearts unravel
Left blowing in the wind
Scurrying away
Shedding my skin
Arcane light
Across the windmill
Propels our thoughts
Across the North Sea
Architect of your dreams
Building worlds from scratch
From the seams
Diligently and patiently pixel by pixel
Brick by stone
Japanese blossom falls
Down from the eyelids
As tears are shed like memories
Blotting like ink across the water
Volcano in the sky
Erupts shining light down
Through the clouds of ash below
For when the storm has past
And the air is clear
We can still feel your warmth and presence near.
Dedicated in loving memory of Erik Van Wace.
Relics of the tower Crumbling down To smithereens Upon a fallen architects Dreams Skeleton structures Impaling the land As bats weave in and out Of the ruins The moon shines a spotlight Out onto the ocean Wind farms flash red in the dark The silhouettes of the towers Engulfed slowly by the mist The Reculver disappearing Like a memory As landscapes begin to shift
Atoms bounce
Like particles of memories
Melting away
Faces like neon stripes
Cars hurtling in motion
Through the night
Apples falling off trees
Newton’s law will ground us all
From spiralling up in our minds
Free of gravity and of time
There is a universe
Inside our minds
Where all our thoughts
Pass by like comets
Can coexist and collide
Poem dedicated to Thomas Van Hulle
Dream catchers blow in the wind
Rainbow ribbons trailing like tentacles
Wrapping around our thoughts
Cracks appear
In the colourful mosaic of the sky
Sucking me up
As the carpet of earth
Is pulled from under my feet
Locusts swarm in the heat
Against a blood red sun
Memories melting like ice
On a Cuban beach.
Shadow across the sky
Illuminates the third eye
Snakes, mechanical crawl
Across the volcanic planet
Mercury droplets of rain
Fall from the heavens
As the skulls of humanity
Regrow with flowers
Regenerating the scars of time.
Jeremy Warder 