Five years

Wind back five years
(that’s all we’ve got)
this day, two friends left
walked together, perhaps, who knows
through the coloured light
leaving this world a little darker
a little quieter a little emptier.

The sky will be fierce clear tonight
and amid star-dazzle
and serious moonlight
we’ll tell ourselves we see
our big beautiful Branwell
stretching across the universe
to the Starman on the other side.

 

Advertisement

Sleep

A variation on the dVerse ghost cat theme that isn’t a Quadrille.

I see you on the roof at night,

When moonlight silvers smooth red tiles

And hear your cry, so distant now.

A slender shadow in the grass,

You sniff the rose we planted, where

We laid you in the cold, cold ground

And watered it with warmest tears.

Soon, I tell your phantom shade,

We all will fallen petals be.

Sleep, ghost cat, songbirds are calling,

Sleep in rose-sweet petals falling.

Ghost cat

For the dVerse prompt—a quadrille using the word ghost.

I see you on the roof at night

when moonlight silvers smooth red tiles

and hear your cry, so distant now.

You sniff the rose we planted

on the place you lie.

Soon, I say, we will all be fallen petals.

Sleep, ghost cat.

Cat gone

Cat

you

with fiery

brilliant eyes

and velvet rhythm

sail the night sky,

ghost haunts

with a secret smile

and magic dance

my sad heart.

 

Cat star

Remembering, on this day one year ago, two lost boys.

Grey day dawning

and in the sky

a starman rose,

a cat star leapt,

over the double, over-arching rainbow,

with inhuman grace,

dropping away like morning dew,

the miasma of drugs and sleep,

embracing the wild empty blackness,

the star-embroidered blackness,

the silent, velvet-padded blackness

of infinity.

Adieu

Stars die,

Glitter, dust,

And the firmament renews,

In a blaze of light.

Stars die,

Glitter, dust,

Songs are sung,

Memories pasted in halls of fame.

All die,

With one gull to lead the way,

To the same rainbow bridge,

Bowies and Branwells.

Sept: Safe Home

No
death’s hand
falls this eve
otherworld waits
no candle
leads you
home.

From the bedside

The patient is responding to treatment and was pleased to see us. Thin and fragile-looking, our great eunuch is a shadow of his former self. Fingers crossed they’ll let him come home tomorrow.

There’s a third pic but WP won’t upload it. Another ghost in the works.

Branwell: Hope springs

Hope springs in a bowl of water lapped,
A handful of biscuits eaten with relish.
Behind those green eyes, no maudlin reflections,
No regrets for wasted opportunities,
No weariness with the dull predictability of a life not worth living.
Tired, thin and sick, the core beats strong.
No high high philosophical thoughts beneath that skull,
But a tenacious will to live,
To sniff the cold autumn air,
And stalk the rooftops with the joyful morning birds.

A thought for our Branwell

Just a cat,
A moggy from nowhere,
Washed up at a friendly door.
But if the sickness claims him,
He will always be the cat,
The brown and lazy pasha,
Heavy as a beanbag,
Soft as melted butter,
Who left a jagged hole
When he passed through our lives.