As Tigers Sleep On Lilypads

All the riverbanks are quiet,
evening silhouettes stab the wildlife
and light breezes into dark fits
mephistopheles lurks in the ivy mobbed graveyard;
nests filled with belsen chicks
wobble under wormy breaths
but the whirlwind is awake.
That metal pupil bathed in light
beyond tafarns and ponds
sees red on tongues,
and as inmates soft in slumber
wail in their dreams
their fantasies ferment in bubonic fire.

Green still grows in swollen fists
and meadows roll to order
as flesh stunted lips
rise the blood of nature,
but the septic stone and bamboo steel
still sulks in crescents of the moon.
While all around is cradle to still waters
the violent shake in fragile shells,
their rage the chains
that hold them drowned...

@Steven Francis poems 2010