Once in the Wood on Fire

As kids we discovered a ramshackle wooden hut deep in the woods, seemingly an occasional refuge for the homeless. Over the years, it’s become apparent that the hut had remained in our psyche. I sometimes wonder who paints the glasses rose-coloured? This is the tale of Mandy who was to abandon housewife suburbia for glitz & glamour of crack! She was found corpsed in pools of vomit & shit & piss. Oh, the glamour indeed!

Amen! To the reverence of
Skipping ropes and Rubik’s cubes,
Hide and thy shall seek the
Glory of the Lord-of-the-Flies.

Listen to the wind break the barley
Hear the tin whistle summon sprites &
Last rites of poetry~baby first breath.
In the woods someone always kneels.

A dead rat tree nailed, pen-knife skinned
Mandy wrapped putrid pelt around Barbie
Leaf veiled in search of plastic limbed lover.

Pew prints cover pulpits of her bruises
Shin splints, cracked skin, bandage burden
For sins she has yet to commit.
The God woods smile at our setting suns.

Murder of crowds scythed the words
From chapters of her small mouth, and
Buried them in charcoal eyes of waiting nights:
We’re dead lucky to have found this place.

Morning mist burnt away
By first salvo of morning sun
Lingered in Mandy’s daily mantra:
Dead.
Lucky.

In the hut an old man’s detritus
Wept piss across news headlines,
White lace curtains swept as threaded
Butterfly wings on verge of taking flight.
Child dreams pupate from stones & shells.

It seemed the first of forty days
Rained roses & purple spinning petals,
We hunkered in the hut, as water
Splintered on a reef of radio waves:
Shipping Forecast spoke of foreign lands
Malin, Lundy, Humber, Viking…
We left parts of ourselves
In the flashing rain.

We lit a fire and watched
Branches burn to ash,
Smoke fingers melted
Entwined into perpetual prayer.
Mandy carved her name.

Somwhere,
Fatally foretold
The Storyteller sprinkles soil
Under bows of sinking ships.
Mandy is carving a list.

Somewhere,
In some other wood
Innocence seeks salvation.