Picture This Poem by john appleby

A bee's wing over Abyssinia;
a poison clock.
A whale beached and lifeless on a Scottish shore,
five pigs-old spots-wandering through empty rooms.
A wheel.
A ginger cat bending a willow branch,
a jackdaw melting into a gunmetal crack.
A knife cutting through a green shroud.
A horse, black as coal kicking at the sun,
four sisters, some related, waiting on bare tables.
A banquet of ham and curdled milk their reward.
TV sets in every room, each one showing a black and white
Finnish documentary.
A rainbow over my Welsh winter, its tapering mane caught
in the brittle branches of a dead hawthorn.
A bridge, Roman perhaps? arcing over tomorrow.
White Doves and crows carved into the grey stone,
earthing itself to the memories of man.
Picture this; a sailor lost at sea, a poet lost at C,
a butterfly imprinted on a pane of glass,
its dusted wings fixed into a prism of flight;
waiting for the sun's breath to draw it from whispers.