(i) <br /> <br />The stench of rotting flesh behind the curtain <br />hangs. <br />Poised to penetrate the languid hospital ward, and <br />almost as certain as the death that will ensue; <br />the unrestrained cries for help, mere mordant yelps resound <br />and drown and drown <br />until, like a secret betrayal the silence descends <br />as another wave laps painfully against her waterlined body <br />and she sleeps. <br /> <br />Her moribund shores spawn familial wails, <br />while with sombre sobriety medical angels <br />sluice away each barnacle of life, <br />expunging her memory with clean cotton coverlets upon her sea bed. <br /> <br />(ii) <br /> <br />Beyond the deep in my perennial border; <br />Cadaverous, brittle, gasping for water <br />shed leaves of sanguinity as pesticides creep <br />along veins while each follicle freezes; tumbling onto the ground beneath. <br /> <br />Twenty years have I nurtured this morbid formation. <br />Cultivated with adept facility, <br />My rampant mate as he grows, explodes, and nestles heartily amongst my <br />innermost being and propagates once more. <br />My mind berates its feeble counterpart. <br />Yet; what malady can ever be wholly somatic? <br />All my virtues anaesthetized by pain. <br />These binding weeds, where canker breeds, must never be allowed <br />to suffocate my passion.<br /><br />Elizabeth Wychbury<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-flotsam-and-jetsam-ii-raking-over-the-past/
