Blue Pages 1.7 — Jennie Farley

The Visit

I want to avoid that part of town
but my shadow bids me take her
there. The last rays of sun are turning
the cobbled streets a rancid buttery yellow.
Dusk looms like creeping fog.

I try to turn back but am gripped by
this unseen hand leading me along
dim alleyways where the overhead
rooftops touch, to where a ragged
curtain opens onto an ill-lit stage.

The tableau before me is the colour
of bone. Skulls grin beneath bonnets
and tricorn hats, open frock coats reveal
crumbling ribs, skeletal fingers grasp
faded skirts. All is silent and still as stone.

I stand transfixed, I daren’t look away.
I knew there was something I shouldn’t see
in this strange town I visit only in dreams.
Then a grinding sound, a wheezing music,
the grim figures on the stage are beckoning me.

Jennie Farley is a published poet, workshop leader and teacher. Her poetry has featured in many magazines and she has performed her work at poetry festivals. Her third poetry collection HEX has just been published by Indigo Dreams Publishing…‘barbaric and bewitching in equal measure, constantly asking the reader to question our own identities and the masks we wear.’ — Stephen Daniels