Gaye Chapman
Decompose

Decompose

Somewhere between stasis and nullity
pre-putrescence
there is a flash
a moment of omniscience

In the cave of the dead
senses shroud
and the body wears viscera like a shawl
incandescent, swaddling the past

From melting flesh, a sightless spirit seeps
amoebic, incorporeal
ascends the stony stairway
seeking the black void beyond infinity


In response to Gaye Chapman’s ‘Decompose’.


© Sheryl Persson


The Butterfly Effect

‘Is the moon not there unless I can see it?’
- Einstein

Back home, but never back,
exploding like ectoplasm
across the empty rooms,
the decomposed gardens.

Old responsibilities, seasons
rise up, numinous
as christmas ghosts, this space
that once took us in.

For the cabbage nymph, or neophyte,
it’s chaos theory.
Dust on the snooker balls
might change

the moment of collision,
the dense stars wheeling
in the firmament,
or the response.



Margaret Bradstock.