Cerebral Attack

Image courtesy Bethany Szentesi Unsplash.com
Image courtesy Bethany Szentesi Unsplash.com


Scissors cut these eyes
Sever all they’ve seen
Push harder, deeper, further
Slice away stem dreams 

Delve new holes to Hades
Silver blades to black
Echoes born of memories
This cerebral attack


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

LESS

Photo by K8 on Unsplash

There’s less of me now
I dissipate daily
One emotion at a time
Falling from grace
Like a rock from a cliff
Shards of me crumbling
Just crumbling away
Less than a person
Worse than a ghost
Grey eyes dispersing a gloom
That permeates this soul


Freedom deserts me
I’m no longer myself
Walking the high wire
In concrete boots
Awaiting the plummet
Whilst watching birds fly
So far and so free
Wondering if angels do too
I’m less than I was
There’s less of me now
With never enough to save


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Unless

Photo by Mayank Dhanawade on Unsplash

Unless you say
How can I know

Unless you wish
How can I dream

Unless you stop weeping
How can my own heart heal


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Emotional Contraction

I curl inwards
Though no sleeping rose am I
Waiting for tomorrow’s sun
Protecting the bloom
Tighter and tighter until it hurts
Fingers curling, toes, too
A spine made willow
Bent by autumn storms
This is the life you’ve granted
Sights and sounds
Growling through the dusk
Moaning through the midnight
Weeping till the dawn
An emotional contraction
I’ll never unfurl

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Skeletal Explanations

Photo by Ryan Gagnon on Unsplash

She plays his bones like a glockenspiel
He likes how it tickles

He grins at how her skull echoes
She just glad he’s talking in her ear

Theirs is a musical marriage
Hollow notes and ricochets

A tickle of the ivories, they say
But who ever played their own

Such skeletal explanations multiply
As their symphony develops

How grateful are the moles and worms
Now they’ve taken it below


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Haiku 9

Image by me
Image by me

windswept whisperings
a seasonal change of clothes
russet swirls of death


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Being

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

This dismissed state
Lived through daily
Its snowflake touch
Transcending normality
Its inherent pain
Unavoidable


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Haiku 8

Image by me

what once ran so clear

divides this world from the next

green is the colour


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Elsewhere

Artwork by me
Artwork by me

This flickering Nowhere makes a mockery of the Somewhere I’m supposed to be

The streetlight’s intermittent bulb, unable to illuminate even the merest confirmation

Gives no inkling of where I am, where I’m going, or even, where I’ve been

An owl hoots in amplifying echoes as though seeking to assist in its radar sharpness

But I am neither bat nor whale, though I often feel like I inhabit their abodes

Those of ebon shades and indistinct definition, of water, earth, air and the in-between

For momentous decision are made at night, not dusk, nor dawn, nor unassignable hours

Regardless of one’s exact positioning, one’s actual viewpoint, one’s supposed vision

As true thinkers shirk from the sun and its brazen obviousness, its deliberate displays

Preferring the cool rationale of imagined midnight streets, actual lonely lanes and desperate city blocks

This flashing beacon intercepts such thoughts and promotes only one conclusion

I am neither Nowhere, nor Somewhere, so must be Elsewhere. I always have been


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Forever Blood

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Desperate, we strive to unite
both sides of souls made
unmanageable by time
and technology, pain and war,
our conjunction hearts seeking
to ease from the shade,
break from the blinding glare of false light.
Neither black nor white, but red,
they run, with copious amounts of blood.
Always blood. Forever blood.


Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.