Reading 32 - The Last of the Curlews
The Last of the Curlews
High tide, full moon; in the dim-lit toxic ballroom;
The terror, the despair; no place for a body like mine;
Choking tears of wretched misery,
I run from this place,
Clawing at the inky black beyond;
An unforgiven child,
Misfiring; sparking on only one cylinder,
I lunge and plunge, paralysed by this trauma.
Like the very last mottled male
of a drab grey and brown species of bird,
Performing his ecstatic courtship dance
for the One who will surely come,
Only for his cascading passion to slowly sicken
and lie addled in his chest,
His terrible desolation, transmitting
a gut-wrenching wave of inexplicable loneliness,
Out into the cold black depths of space,
Blocking every radio,
With static bolts of searing pain.
