the journeyman shelters a child his face a portrait of fear

his rags envelop his custody as best they can

an improvisation of hope where none had purchase before

the sky injected with every colour of pain like a shooting gallery

the dead sun sinks below a bloody horizon milked by the sea a casualty of the day shot dead at night

their only guide stone now an occult inscription insoluble to man carved on a marble plinth beyond divers in deep ravines of oceans they keep their secrets close and their enemies closer

like a sphinx weathered and pock marked but with history yet to tell in a foreign tongue

its secrets an enigma

their journey no clearer now just a confusion of corridors as a labyrinth traps its players

when the sun breaks away from the shackles of the underworld its pale lumens sketch paths scattered wild and shy upon the day of birth

every species of prey are given no quarter ready to be silenced like intruders as vultures glean the skies for kill

the air disturbed like silent ripples whispering threats a vague menace upon the land

death a black basalt obsidian sculpture fractures falls and jars their way a signpost to hell

in a confusion of birth the baby clothed in damask and silk and hope gasps for oxygen in

the pale fire of its resurrection like a phoenix bird