As I wade through haunted miasma
Its corrosiveness gnaws away at my flesh.
There were ghastly figures over my head
Reaching out their arms of phantasma.
My limbs pass though theirs senseless.
There’s no escaping this cesspool by the aid of the dead.

Still drudging forward I pray for the sight of something solid.
Sludge fills the gaps between my toes.
Each step suctions me stronger than the last.
Every so often my leg brushes against something horrid.
I cannot tell if it is a serpent or rotted flesh. Who knows?
Resisting the invasion of fear and weakness, I remain chaste.

A drier basin, diverse in life and love,

Must exist beyond this knee-deep sea of unholy strife.

A land of heritage and history, away from all this rot

Is the ideal by which all others I hold none above.

I hunt for this prize with one hand clenching a knife

And my other is stretched out and grasping at the mere thought.

1 November 2017