The Coffer
Coughs
Spits out the last
Farthing falls
Its tiny copper wren
Spinning
Spinning
Spinning
On the slate

The Cupboard
Chokes
Suffocated by countless suits of morbid hue
A mothy morgue of Naphthalene
Historically misused
It should be full of cups and plates
Not swanky
Musty
Shoes

As a door swings ajar
The Closet of infamy
Whines
Sings a joyous top A flat
Spews
A crumpled-paper mish
Mash
Bleached white of time
Strewn upon a brightly patterned rug

Oaths in inky scrawl
Or florid hand
Adorn the Slate the Rug
The tousled Bed
Where desires grew collapsed and died
In bittersweet
Ness
Cloaked

The Bed lay never fallow
Sheets were fields of ruffled ruck
Buff and yellow stained with
Ploughing love
Muck’s
Ageing tallow

As the starchy dawn
Arrives
Two spectres stiffen sore
Appear forlorn
Attempt an embrace
Fail miserably
Curse and vow a fleeting pact to save
What’s left
Of passions
Awe

Kisses pale-aired
Scentless senseless
Drift
Four arms
Vanishing
As they flail about
Clawing back lost
Time
Shared

Blood flesh bone mind
This ever-churning cog
That shreds us bit by bit
Eschewing evidence of any kind

Curtains shedding skins of dusty hair-
fluff
Last to perish
First to grow
We were not old but babies
dressed in second hand suits
ever young
never young
enough