The Tarot Dream
Alex Oliver 23.02.24
I saw him lurch
crow-scared, craw-catch
heaving and choking
unable to form words
His puritan-starched hands
grasp for a root of truth
to fight some sucking current
Tinderbox lit and howling
the augur card sprung
with bear trap teethÂ
staked to rumour
the reader fades
and slips away
into ice,
littering a humming depiction
of groaning gallows
and defiled deformity.
He staggers towards a vision,
stained
as apple blossom in trodden snow;
cold enough to stop a heart
I am only what you think I might be
Drab-dressed in mourning,
dour and rot,
stiff, complaining,
bone-shaken, taken time - not
for giving back
or re-toothing in some dusty abandoned
faery glade, foul and forgotten
as the graves of generations lost
I am but your witness
witless and confused
A wambling nonesuch
unpitied yet crucial
to help our suffering friend
I am the minister of verses
who can bless
souls and blast damnation…
But I go unheeded