Straw heaped in tormenting stack
Sticking and prickling my back
Thick coiling creeper vines wrapped
Around my legs, I am trapped
No escape from the track.

Trudge through to rocky terrain.
Back hunched from bearing the strain.
Load dangles, perilous sway
Stagger on stones in the way
Up the crumbling moraine.

Each step hoists up the incline
Finally make the tree line.
Froth floods the lower hollows;
Up close, sea fossils exposed
On bare-stripped mountain spine.

Message inscribed into slate
Whispers: shrug off the weight
Float free from terrestrial.
Evolving in retrograde
Dissolving vertebrae
Revert to primordial.

Transformed into jellyfish,
I’ve gone gelatinous,
Distilled to pulsing bellows.
Transparent anatomy,
Untouched by gravity:
Pure impulse directly flows.

Broadcasting minute signals,
Radiating ripples
Throughout this liquid domain.
Seek into estuaries
Search all shoreline crannies:
Cold shivers return again

Face down on gravel-strewn shore.
Far flung, the burden I wore
Yet no relief where I sprawl
In stagnant pool, haven’t found
What I ventured out for.

~*~*~*~

LJ Mounteney – vocals
Carman J Price – vocals
Lisa Jensen – oboe
Holly Bryan – horn
Trevor Tunnacliffe – guitar, baritone guitar, bass