I am abandoned in seas of night
drifting listless and wraithlike
listening to the ticking clock
as my words
frail and fragile
escape me
their echoes lingering
just out of reach
Lost in my own garden, I wander
circling, in beautiful solitude
these stripes of mine
confuse and obscure
shapeshifting and superficial
my zebra petals
and tiger leaves
draped like snakes
around naked trees
now twisting helpless
upon the breeze
They hide skin deep
where the price I pay is pain
they bleed away
with the first fall of rain
where they fade
buried out of reach
beyond the tendrils
of endless time
my unseen birds
their songs calling
hollow and unheard
their colours bleeding
softly into darkness
captured
by capricious winds
Scattered and broken
now collecting dust
in ghostly shadows
a symphony of stripes
still circling the night
like the ripples raised
by a drowning stone
as it slowly sinks
into the swirling shallows
alone
Annie's Poetry 