Scarlet

Pink sunbeams, falling
From a grey sky, heavy, still,
With frowning clouds,
On the unforgiving jagged rocks
Of a craggy precipice,
Uncover, with pale,
Pitiful fingers,
The fluttering of a ragged scarf,
Once bravely scarlet,
Coloured in chemical dyes,
Bought, perhaps,
From some brightly decked shop,
One of the multitudes perched on the hills,
But a little way from here,
Scarlet still,
But steeped now in natural hues,
Heavy with the life-blood
Of the twisted body,
Blown off the road by a storm,
Or tossed off it by a rock-slide,
Or maybe something as insipid
As slipping on the ever-present streams of water,
Lying in eternal rest,
Hidden between the rocks.

Charcoal

Large dark eyes,
Lamps of jet in an onyx world,
Stare out the broken window,
Glass shattered, grille twisted,
Encased in blackened walls
Bearing flaky paint, graffiti and spit,
At a filthy alley
Where the city’s debris
Lies in uncovered heaps.

Ash

Like smoke
Curling skywards from the end of a burning fag;
My thoughts heavenwards ascend.
Or mayhap, like the smoke wafting into nought,
Half-done, they die in silence
And my half-lived life
In futility continues,
Like a stamped-out, half-smoked cigarette.