Ghosts In The Shells Poem by Orin MSH

After the deafening silence
The cacophony that came was a blessing
Once we get our heads around it
We are ethereal beings witnessing the world
Of bricks and mortars
Not the other way around
The conscious ghost cannot be tied to the ground
Where it moves stirs not an atom of sound
The soul that pushes our bones and flesh
Is naught but a ghostly thing

Forgive me my trespasses
Forgive me with those doe-wide eyes
Sparkling with a hurried innocence
The gentleness of a unicorn
Trapped in a gilded room
As your harried speech becomes an ocean
Spilling over to the whole wide world
From the small hublot of your apartment
And we traipsed across the living room
Thinking of our parched throats
This language has become a meaningless drone
Amidst a thirsty world

Our love will be as water
Embracing, encapsulating and enamouring
Surrounding everything it touches
Yet remaining distinct and infallible
The first one, we can't go back
To the kisses under neon-drenched rain
To the things that inflict us with most severe pain

We are wanderers lost in the maze
Of our own doing might we become undone
Unravelled as threads from a garb
Left to wither and dry; a broken parchment
Our travels through this forbidden continent
Will cause them to shake and be unspun
To where the boundaries are drawn;
Delineating truths and utter fabrications
Where old writings are concealed by the sand
Cities of gods erased by their black hands
Fanciful outposts fractured to smithereens
Borders that shut us out and keep them in
A plaintive fiction written to deceive
Merging half truths with dogmas and beliefs
(Obfuscate, obscure and inveigle)

When we get around the seduction
We are supernatural beings witnessing the
Corporeal world of granite and masonry
Not the other way around
The sentient ghost cannot be tethered to the ground
Where it goes quivered not a stippled feather
The soul that heaves our sinews and limbs
Is naught but a shadowy thing
Revealing itself momentarily as light hits the skin

Our love will be as the fertile wind
Gently caressing and devastating
Surrounding everything it brushes
Yet remaining distinct and unperturbed
The first ones, we can't return
To the kisses under luscent auroras
To the memories salvaged from our
Catatonic past
Suppressed by the repeating horror
Repressed by the maddening hour.

This is exactly how it ends
Not with a bang, a whimper but a song
I am one among many
To perceive the right from the wrong
The solid truth of blood and bones
Amongst the blind throng to see
With a vision of veracity
We have seen enough of ghosts and spectres
Riding the centuries as sedated spectators
To finally pronounce that it really was
As inscribed in tablets and tomes of antiquity;

And we are left to hunt for ghosts in the shells
With only these, forsaken relics and forgotten spells.


Orin MSH (15th April 2022)