POETRY

The Desert

There is a place where no river flows
Where the sun shines bright and no grass ever grows.
Where water is frozen, solid ice.
No animals live here, not men nor mice.
The soil is baked a badly burnt red.
The color of iron, tainted with lead.
Where dust-devils the size of mountains roam.
Dust kicked up, sprayed like sea-foam.
Where blood boils in the sun, and freezes in the shade.
A place like this, where the shadows never fade. 
A place where the air is breathless thin
There it is- our lifeless, airless twin.
We might have been like that comfortless place.
Another barren desert, drifting in space.
This place is all very well to visit, perhaps.
But to live on Mars? – Good God man, have you snapped?

Lady Autumn

Lady Autumn paid a visit,
This end of summer’s noon.
Lady Autumn paid a visit;
She’ll be leaving soon.

When she walked across my gate,
My roses fell en masse.
When she walked across my gate,
A shadow fell upon the grass.

She came and knocked against my door,
Fogging up the window pane
She came and knocked against my door,
From where my roses lain.

Her hair was wove of fallen leaves,
Her breath a bitter chill
Her hair was wove of fallen leaves
Resting on my window sill.

Her eyes spoke of water slow
And a tinkling of bells
Her eyes spoke of water slow;
A river in death knells. 

Her voice was of a gale cast -
A blowing in my ear
Her voice was of a gale cast
At once both far and near. 

She asked me for a cup of tea
And a sweater blue
She asked me for a cup of tea
And gave a winter new.

I asked her of her travels late
Of lands both near and far
I asked her of her travels late
Beneath her shining star.

She told me of a world of chill
A world of shade and leaves
She told me of a world of chill
A world of evergreens

And then she stood and walked away
A shadow in the shade.
And then she stood and walked away
A new world to be made.
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