dead woman's waltz

animated (visible in the comments section) illustration for the poem:

Dead Woman's Waltz

One two three
Two two three
Three two three

In strange, dark, touchless world whirling. How is it I came to be here? This is not as I knew things to be. Here sight is sightless and sound is at once colour too. Pain is no longer my companion. How peculiar, as pain is a reminder that we still live.

Four two three
Five two three
Six two three

Touchless, yet I am suspended in the arms of someone, I know it. Still no breath warms my cheek, nor does his embrace warm me. Yet this breathless warmthless entity knows me well enough to anticipate every movement. My pained, contorted body has somehow become elegant again.

Seven two three
Eight two three
Again two three

I must test this body, cautiously I allow myself to dip backwards to where my hair brushes my heel. Beautiful how this dancer knows me and twirls me round bent back, my head relaxes and my neck is as long as any swan. I spin faster and find my body upright and pulled close. The stranger has no heartbeat,. Panic. Suddenly I am aware I cannot hear the beat of my own heart.

Two two three
Three two three
Four two three

What is this strange place? Who dances with me? I cannot smell, nor taste. I search for light and there is none. The dancer holds me in embrace but I cannot hold him. I try to draw breath but there is nothing rushing in and out. I scream silently. Let me awake.

Five two three
Six two three
Seven two three

Questions rise and fall with the steps of this dance. No answers come my way. The entity allows me to stand, step and dip. I am becoming accustomed to this new sensory excitement. My body is in the old sense of what once I knew, gone. This dance is pure movement no corporeal body limits me now.

Eight two three
Red two three
Blue two three

Mauve pulses forth epiphanies. Reds swarm as I fear, blues billow on surrender to the ghostly arms, greens swirl on acceptance, golds glow as I trust and let be.. At once all I am, and have been, folds into the glow of a thousand colours harmonising ripples on which to carry me away. Away and here, forever a part of, and never apart, simply and gloriously absorbed in good.

Green two three
Gold two three
Good two three


aletta mes