Another poem! / My future poems thread

[nocaph]

This one was inspired by a thought I had while half asleep regarding the breathing difficulties I'm still having (it really gets you down after 4 months)... that it feels like my lungs are turning into black carbon.  Gotta get it out of my system somehow, hah.

Black Carbon

Tiny thorns work their way through this cage
like a white rose offensive,
a smear of ash, a rattling cough
and the music turns to black carbon.

A steady rock against which the waves
lash with malice, eroding the years,
rusted pipes filled with soot
that makes the island drown.

These large lanterns, big balloons
as chalky as the plaque
that will preserve them in time-
unsettled and grey inside
like broken pavement.

A mockery, a self-fulfilling prophecy,
the sirens of demise called out
and blackened the island by surprise.
The lack of space.
The waste.

[nocaph]

Deadly Nightshade 16/11/12

His mouth, the murder weapon-
a slug with a heartbeat
arrested and still on trial,
crippling eyes, exhausted
and feeling so terminal.
 
Doing time
on the Greenwich mean line,
a ghostly judge, disappearing
through the cracks in
these hospital walls.
 
All but sterile,
deadly nightshade has an agent
on earth, it seems-
I still wonder when I will wake
from this dream.
 
The white heat of promise
turned into a threat.

[nocaph]

The Hen That Lay The Broken Eggshells

Raw and exposed,
branches sprawling sensitive nerves-
hot to the touch
and the animal recoils
with rage.

A feral ego, dissipated disposition
that brings about its own downfall.

Gnawing at the last meat
from the cavities of the bones.
The knee-jerk in your direction;
this particular reflection
is somehow pointless.

The cell death
and all that comes with it:
a virus unborn.

And you are the hen
that lay the broken egg shells.

It is impossible to walk.

[nocaph]

Infected

You, slumped on the aluminium slab,
delirious under the hot halogen lamps-
your febrile temper
is beginning to slice into my reserve,
cutting edge sarcasm,
malicious little games.

The smell of iodine
rich in its abrasive stench
seeps through the cracks in my mind.
Aware that it is trying to fight off
whatever's infected you.

Perhaps it was always there,
dormant as a killer in hiding.

The fever has change you,
your shape melted into a malleable mess
like the rest.

Your temperature rises,
violent convulsions,
some signs of a struggle
and potent perspiration
as if you could sweat the infection out.

Some parasite,
it is part of you now.