WIRES
Do you hear the wires sing?
Sharpen your teeth on the old stones
The land is a noise of omens
Little sparks in the darkness
Remnants of an abandoned past
Ancient rusted machines
Animal flesh burnt as offerings
The wires hum in the empty sky
Walk with me through brackish water
Ghost soil under our fingernails
Hunters in the borderland
Offering maps of bark to the Other lands
When the mist eats away at the forest
We draw substance from our shadows
Making masks and lanterns
Hiding in the Bright Places until the dawn comes
Black metal spires in overgrown lanes
There grow the metal flowers of the night queen
The dark brings such quiet
And the wires sing in the leftover void
Certainty becomes brittle when the new moon shines
And at the edges of the boneyard
Lonely spirits grow bold
Like unstitched wounds in time
Decaying concrete underpasses
Soaked in urine and spray paint
Old tower blocks standing in the sputtering ether glow
Breathing is hard in the rancid air
Only the most desperate creatures brave the forests of brick and glass
You can feel it trapping them
If only they can make it to the clearing
Unobserved by the lost gods and unattached souls
Can you hear the wires sing?
Follow their static moaning through the empty fields
These are the voltage temples
Do not tread lightly through their doors
Not all magics of the night are dispersed by dawn
Some linger still
Trapped in the wires
Singing
FALLEN
You can’t see my wings from over there
They are lost inside a fever dream
Everything is too loud
Screaming when the blinds are opened
Beware of those who collect feathers
Landfills full of used up thoughts
I burn brighter when you water the flame
Like a peat fire hidden underground
I bet you are made from the most beautiful of stars
You have mistook me all this while
Intoxicated with loneliness
A silent corridor of drifting ash
Your bandages make me turn feral
I change the sheets each day but its leaking out of me
Every night I dream of paradise
There is always the taste of vodka in my mouth
My teeth never feel sharp enough
The homesickness makes my jaw ache
I sit at the back of every old church
In every lost town, in every forgotten world
Blinded by the incense
You can’t see my wings from over there
But they burn on the inside
Maybe one day I will get to go home
REFUGE
When the world is cruel, we seek refuge in others
Delicious moments of terror
A sense of what is buried below
Dappled smears of psychic history
Haunted by all the journeys never made
There are lines drawn on the land
Old TVs and piles of asbestos
Violently weaponised loneliness
The Silence will follow you
Like a nauseous adrenaline chill
An apocalypse of quiet and unploughed fields
The white ash of Solstice bonfires
I had that dream again
The one where all those dead crows come back to life
I’m seeing pathways to God
In the geometry of the skeletal leaves
Don’t confuse vulnerability with weakness
Those are the waiting areas
Drowned in the smell of failed metaphysics
The place where the shadows thicken
Monsters are the patron saints of our imperfections
The wheel keeps turning
Negative and positive
Underworld and wide open sky
What is the reality of my feelings?
I sleep with bone fragments under my pillow
Searching for the Mist Gates and the liminal borders
A hovering fairyland of soft dreams
How desolate everything is
Your thoughts shift in the hazy light
You must contain the darkness
Absorb it, accept it, and move on
Miles Coombe (he/him) is a queer multidisciplinary artist living in London. He is fascinated by the idea of modern fairy-tales. He often combines the words that he writes with the artworks that he makes. His writings are based on youth / obsession / loss / nostalgia / memory / dreams / mental health / folklore and apocalyptic landscapes. Find him at; www.trashprincemusic.com and https://twitter.com/trashprincemuse
unpublishable 