LAURA KARNIVA

The garden gate swung open with a creak,

A welcome mat lay trodden by children’s feet,

Every brick was pale, bleached as linen shirts,

Hung on a telephone wire,

For thousands of years played in reverse.

 

Hearts were exposed on an open fire,

Christmas smells of tinsel and wool attire,

Through a clouded window, only ghosts,

Remain hunched together,

Over, over giddy games they used to play.

 

The hand of reprimand,

Will not let me - let me return,

I cannot dare to wear this face,

Near the hateful aim of His disgrace.

 

The locks have been turned too quick,

All memories captured in a net wove thick,

Screwed in a jar, on the highest, grandest shelf,

Never to be rewound, only a dead visitor,

Could pass through walls to reclaim abstract wealth.

 

A silent swing in an empty park,

Chains so rusty they would break apart.

The playground desolate in midnight’s breeze,

For they are all sleeping,

Dreaming under, in monochrome sheets.

 

But the hand of reprimand,

Will not let me - let me return,

I cannot dare to wear this face,

Near the hateful aim of His disgrace.

 

Disappointed in all I’ve become,

I cannot return to the house in the sun,

Once you move out,

Another moves inside.

The rooms now a mystery of which i’m denied.

 

For the hand of reprimand,

Will not let me return.