They’ve
capped the shafts
To the
mines of hell
Rust
and brick remain
Empty
shell
New
houses spring up
At the
roadside
Fresh
plots at the graveyard
Filled,
in time
I
crouch at the graveside
Your
stone cage
‘Forever
in our hearts’
Words
worn away
Those
untold stories
Whole
universes lost
Diaries
in boxes
Hoarding
dust in the loft
The
daily forgetting
Breathed
out in sighs
Shrouding
the silence
Our ritual
disguise
So we
play detective
Imagine
their faces
House numbers,
street names
Overlooked
places
Filling the void
With
clues left behind
Joining
the dots
On
maps of the mind
Under
cover of darkness
We
seek out their relics
Labours
of love
Like citadels
derelict
No
lights in the windows
No
glass left at all
Just
pulses that throb
And
canaries that call
At the
edge of the mine
We hurdle
the gates
The
palms of our hands
Are
astrolabes
Inside
their halls
Of
brimstone and fire
We stand
still and listen
To a
voiceless choir
Ducking
the fence-gap
Wire
pierces my skin
Seams
fall unbound
Canaries
don’t sing
What
life in the ruins
Our
ancestors built
Like
flowers in concrete
Bloom
bright, then wilt
We
witness it all
And
emerge unscathed
For
time is a healer
Our
scar’s on the page
O land
of the living
Dead,
but for myth
Why
summon a ghost
When
you dwell there in spirit?
