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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A scimitar moon slices the dunes in twain,
rippling sands in obsidian curves,
twisting mercury tinges of diamond-bright light:
A fantasy made real.
And though this throat constricts,
I take one final breath of midnight;
the mirage remains the same
of you in silks wrapped loosely,
dark eyes beaming onyx bright
with desert dangers of old.
Dangers reflected in my own.
They are the merest flashes, glimpses of eternity,
where dunes, moon, oasis and mirage
merge into the same Arabian dream.
My dream. Our Dream. Us.
Thank you for reading
Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Falling like feathers through each other’s mind,
this is our way, these delicate descents.
But not always.
Our hearts once rose like rocks, forced from Vesuvius by tectonic immensity.
As gold-plated angels, we ascended.
As false gods, we looked down on them all.
Sparks extinguish.
Lights go out.
Coatings tarnish.
Heights are made from which to fall.
I see her, feel her, think of her as a rainbow does the sky.
One without the other is pointless,
as only one gleams.
She sees me, hears me, thinks of me as a star does the endless night.
Such pinprick pomposity!
Blink and it’s gone.
We tumble like feathers in an indelicate descent.
We tumble.
Fall.
Another dream soured.
Thank you for reading
Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
sweetest surrender
ebony to tangerine
a chorus of birds
Thank you for reading
Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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