Go ask the shattered shades of men
With starlight in their eyes
What secrets may be found beyond
The dim and distant skies

Go ask the twisted broken corpse
That hangs upon a tree
What knowledge may be found within
The long eternity

Go ask the cold and dew-wet grass
What clay still lies beneath
Go ask the buried bones where lie
The waters of the Lethe

Go ask the newly slain of war
With wounds still gaping red
What peace there is beyond the night
For those already dead

Go ask the ghosts of murdered men
Of drowned and starved and burned
Come back to me, my living love,
And tell me what you learned

Copyright © 2022 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.

Yet another poem from way back in the day that I somehow failed to post over here. Still pleased with this one.

In half a minute, half a halfbeat more
Our words can travel halfway round the world
In half a minute, linked from shore to shore
As fast as thought by lightning slingshot hurled

‘cross borders, boundaries, cultures, codes and creeds
We share our faces, thoughts, our hopes and fears
Our dreams, our dreads, our plans, our words, our deeds
Our stories, echoed onward down the years

From every corner, country, scrap of land
We sing out, voices strong against the dark
We stand together, knowing that we stand
United, stronger, passing on that spark

For though the world lies sunk in blackest night
While still we live, and still we sing, there’s light

(Author’s Note: Apologies to Brecht for once again plundering his quote, this time for title inspiration. This was originally written for a prompt-fill – the prompt was ‘technology’, though I think I slightly went off on a tangent from that)

Open fields, a patchwork quilt of farmland
Outlining the swell of the land’s curves
The road thrums with traffic, artery-busy,
artery-blocked. Single cell by single cell
We squeeze past, rejoin the healthy flow
A tunnel takes us, clean and gleaming
As sterilised equipment, bathed in street-light orange
Filtered through, we emerge blinking
Into the mountain-cradled hollow of a broken tooth
White snowfalls gleaming sunset-bright
As bloodstains under ultraviolet
Ahead, car tail-lights glimmer in the darkness,
A jewel-red snake, riding the spine of the world.

Copyright © 2018 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.

For the ghosts of Maelstrom, and the stories that never die

Cigarettes and whiskey and woodsmoke
In the hour between two and three
And the glow of a burning-out bonfire
Catching echoes of songs of the sea

And the ghost of a memory stirring
Wreathed around in the smoke of the past
And a song of a soldier returning
Calls us back to the campfire at last

And a whisper of prayer in the treetops
Brings a breeze from the salt and the foam
And the fire and the drink and the singing
Brings the last of the wanderers home

Copyright © 2018 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.

[cw: self-harm.
This is written from experience, and after reading a few too many poems glorifying/mysticising self-harm]

Don’t pretend you’re special just for knowing all the steps
There’s been a hundred hundred go before
And with every line you make you find you’re tracing other scars
Cut in other skin with feelings just as raw

Don’t think that you’re unique because you’ve never met another
You think we’re all as obvious as you?
There’s a wealth of information layered fabric can conceal
And there’s sense enough in hiding what you do

So you think you’re on your own, that there’s nobody understands you
Well here’s a thought – try opening your eyes
For every one of us who hides it there’re ten who barely bother
And inside knowledge sees behind the lies

It’s a punishment, release, it’s a way of keeping grounded
It’s a test or it’s a way to keep you sane
It’s a dry run for escaping, it’s a way to feed addiction
It’s for blood, it’s for penance, it’s for pain

It’s disturbing or it’s honest, it’s a problem or solution
You’re the only one who gets to make that call
But it’s not unique and special and it doesn’t make you deeper
It’s only human nature, after all.

Copyright © 2018 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.