News of Poetry Corner

She's a girl, not grown but clad in armour. She carries her sword and her shield and she shivers in the shadow of what she has become.

She can make no sense of what she can see as she sits in the darkness forever.

Just shapes in the blackness moving from side to side.

She can hear his voice but knows not what he says.

And in the darkness he has grown all twisted and ...

She thought he was dead.
She saw the mound of soil that covered his body.
She saw the headstone with his name and date of death
Then she heard him speak
She looked in the mirror and saw his face
She smelt him in the air
She felt his skin in her hand
She felt his heart beat fast in her chest
She spoke the words he would use in anger and in pain
She ...

Today in America truth is treason in the Age of Deceit
And there’s no blindness like self conceit

Today in America forgotten are the lessons and wisdom of old
And the love of so many has grown dark and cold

Today in America the cross of the church is covered in stains of rust
And the Sunday services only pander to their own lust

Today in America the schools teach our youth division and fear ...

Her life is a dusty road,
It's wide and well lit.
A full spectrum of colour
Yet the movie's in just black and white.

A million featureless faces, the people who she once met.
Just scattered and separate,
Strangers at best.

They don't know her name.
She's a girl they'll forget but a girl who could listen,
Dry eyed as they share dirty secrets.

No sun,
It's not cold and it's dry but for pools ...

Fear creeps in

Extinguishing light with his thick, dark cloak and drapes himself across the tables and chairs

He walks his fingers up her spine. Making her shiver, the hairs on her neck stand on end.

He fills the room with a frosty chill

And she's frozen

Two black eyes and a broken nose

She's got blood on her clothes

Bare feet, a dirty face and a smile from ear to ear. 

She doesn't care what you say, she'll just laugh in your face as you take her prints and lock her away. 

Hey girl
I can see you now
You're there girl, standing in the dark
Can you hear me through the rain
And the pain, and what remains are left after they've torn your soul to shreds?

I love you girl
I can see the tear left its track underneath your black eye and the scar on your head and the filth in the bed where they left you for dead.

Don't be afraid girl,
I ...

Sorrow travels back in time. She comes to see the child. 

She sees abandonment, neglect and filth. A room devoid of humanity and dark as hell. 

She kicks a hole in the wall and the daylight floods in. 

The child is pale. Skin and bone. An emaciated animal, writhing in pain and empty of love. 

Sorrow smiles and takes on the shame and the guilt. She kisses the child and mops her brow. 

Sorrow can ...

I don't know how to help her. 

All she ever wanted was for someone to notice what was happening and for them to save her. Rescue her and take her away.

It never happened so she took herself away and got lost. She got lost forever. 

She's buried deep beneath the layers.

Beneath the snarls and the scowls, beneath the laughter and the the anger.

Beneath the drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. Beneath the one ...

She can wring out her brain like a dirty wet cloth

She can see as the memories and the filth and the grime of her past swim like piranha fish in the sewer, eating up anything good in their way. 

And as she writes about all this it's like unblocking the pipes or pulling the plug and watching the dirty water swirl down the drain

But residue leaves a tide mark on the old tin ...