To bodies which no longer exist

the sharpened edge of a dull knife slices through the day

and spring drowns in a sea of red

opens the horror

flesh strung

tangled

entangled

                strangled

joints bent far beyond their natural flex

flesh

                                cuts of meat 

mangled beneath the stamp of iron feet and mechanised tracks

                                                indeterminate sex

within whose dissected bowels Death roosts savage

                            sings

songs praising itself

for being Death

for delivering Death

for providing relief in Death for those rooted in this cursed earth

living yet dead

slowly               wilfully forced                 marched into a deepening grave,

blood skies heavy above,

sides slick with broken glass,

the world’s eyes banked

lens blanked

watching bodies which no longer exist,

ghosts of ghosts springing from ghosts,

but within those ghosts seedlings of a gathering transubstantiant nation,

reaching beyond the pitiless parade of power,

the voyeuristic sympathetic apps and NFTS,

rising resistant, rooted in the truth, bearing hope.