Your Ivory Tower

 

 

 

        Leaning out of the open window

        Of your ivory tower

        The ivy crawls up the walls

        Twining with your fingers

        Binding you to the sill

        Watch as the wicked mother

        Carries her child to the rose garden

        To bury her alive

        See how the thorns snatch

        At the silken strands of the child's hair

        Why does she not cry out?

        Hush! The shrivelled crimson petals fall

        Mingling with the mud

        The mother

        Filling the open grave

        Smiles

        There are no witnesses

        No one to stay her hand

        Only you

        Are you to be this child's saviour?

        The ivy rises up, furious

        Enveloping you

        Clinging to your arms

        Crawling across your shoulders

        Wrench yourself free

        Stumbling to the doorway

        Hurry, she needs you

        Round the winding stairs and down

        And in your mind see the skeletal hand

        A ghastly morbid white

        Protruding from the unmarked grave

        Scrabbling claw- like at the earth

        Know that she is choking on her screams, alone

        Suffocating in the mire as

        The roots of the thorn bush strangle

        Wrapped around her throat

        Faster and faster

        Your feet fly on the stairs

        Tumbling over one another

        You are being pulled helplessly

        Down

        Falling

        Slipping through spiral of the milk white shell

        The wall of the grave closes over you

        And now look up

        See the mother's triumphant smile

        At last you understand

        Saviour? No.

        You are the mother and you are the child.