Turquoise Monster

Azure sky, azure sea
Both trailing into
Deep blue, studded with cream
A mirror, a divide
A gray smudge
Marrs the perfection
The land slicing intrusion

Rocks in red clay
Rocks in the precision walls
Rocks in the rectangle

Clay matrix
Clay cement
Dark tomb
Your own small cave
Forever
Or until the continents shift
Shatter and crumple

Your cave
Your realm
You have a beautiful view
And we shall miss you

Rocks above
Rocks below
Rocks around
Rocks forever surround

What can you say
When the sorrow is so thick
It chokes you
Leaving you gagged

What can you feel
When the sorrow is so large
It blankets you
Leaving you smothered

What can you do
When the sorrow is so keen
It cuts you
Leaving you soaked

What can you be
When the sorrow is so fresh
It chains you
Leaving you trapped

Hold on too tight and you crush
Let go and you lose
Tether and you bind a trap
Cut loose and you kill in kind

Tooth and jaw consume
Hunger burns bright
An orange bubble in their minds
Green swirls slicing their stomachs
Mostly hungry
Always empty
Predators of marine paradise
Shadows large and fierce
Hunger always

I am the cactus of the prairie
I am the cactus of the plain
I am the cactus of the equatorial mountain
I am the cactus of the desert

I am thick skinned
I am spiky
I am green
I am beige and grey covered
I am an oasis
I am reaching to the sky

In the desert at night it is cold
Ice in the crevices
The sky is clear and dark
Stars shine there
How do you see them?
For me time moves faster
I live longer
It is relative
My stars are streaks
I live in a blurred circle of white blue
My desert
My sky
All around me is silver glitter
I lift my limbs high

The orange mire
That marks the blaze
Glowing trees
Dark at the centre
Luminous around the edge

Devastation with a heart of gold
Embers twist and turn
And float away
Couriers for the blaze
Devour, consume
Cleanse the forest

Dead wood gone
Insect marauders restrained
Soil charred, blackened
Purified
Nutrients induced
New shoots appear
Green islands

Trees resilience
Outer crust baked
Whilst heart wood
Cold as Alaska

The fire - Life’s catalyst
Wax trapped seeds
Heat melts
Ensuring their escape

Breaths new life
Destructive Creation
Fire the destroyer
Fire the bringer of life
Fire the cyclic phenomenon

Plumes and Platforms
And little fluffy skirts
Yellow and Pink
But mainly Pink

Plaited hair
With golden ribbons
Pink patent boots
Higher than the knees

Pink boaters
With ostrich feathers
Tall stately
And faintly ridiculous

Corsets tight
Luminous
Glittering gilt
Ruffles on the plates

Dancing, swirling
Onlookers watch
Not knowing the boredom
Not seeing the people

Spectacle
Impersonal
Something to photograph
Do they mind?
Do you ever ask?

Upon a Welsh Mountain Side
Above a disused slate quarry
Below a turgid sky
In a fine hazy drizzle

A monstrous pink flapping monster
Perched on the edge
About to take flight

Fear sticks in the throat
Fear jellifies the knees
Fear pancake flips the stomach
Fear trembles the lips

But dad is there
Smiling
Saying ‘don’t be afraid
Pink pterodactyls are extinct’
And pink bats don’t exist

We draw close
We draw near

The pink flapping monster
Charges us
A shreak of fear
Big strong arms
A bear face grinning
Brow prickling beard
And blue crinkled eyes
A greeting hug

‘I forgot me coat
Had to wrap meself in an old sheet
And with a smile
We went to see today’s
Paleontological find