Desecration

Paul Brookes is asking for Tutankhamun-inspired poems today. This is mine.

Desecration

In the dry dark cracked open,
gold is mute, gemstones without fire,
air without breath.

The walls crawl
with picture-written magic,
in processions of silence.

Lamplight pierces the gloom
of rooms sealed in lead, beeswax
and the deep indifference of time,

where corpses, babies and a boy,
dried, gutted and embalmed, wrapped
and barded with amulets and prayers,

are still dead.