I.
If only 
I could find a skull
to give me back the breath of life –

the voice of a dead man is the only thing
that can give me back my creativity

when trying to write is difficult
as raising the dead.

II.
There are secrets
between life and death
that float like faces, like voices,

in that vastness, in that whiteness,
in that mist, in that silence before speech

where all the lost voices wander and a god says:

“When you cannot speak why not listen?”

How can I listen to the silence,
the silence of the mist?

III.
If only
I could light a candle
in the jaw of a skull like a tongue –

a flickering flame to guide me to where

the skulls and the skull keepers 
know of voices silenced,

smoky threads.

IV.
If only 
I could find a skull
that is not shattered like this one,

held together by strings of spider-thread,

broken by so many blows,
so many blows to
the head.

V. 
When I find
his skull, broken, 
occipital and foramen magnum
cracked along with his back molar

it reminds me of how I clench my teeth

when I am driving the roads that do not lead
to the next life, circuiting the M60,
praying I do not die

and am not found
skeletal fingers clasping
the steering wheel wondering
where on this road I lost my creativity.

VI.
Somewhere, somehow with the help
of the spiders I will learn to sew
our skulls together

and in the silence,
in the mist, we will listen 
and understand the words of a god.

*This poem relates to Worsley Man whose story can be read and his skull viewed here – https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526150196/9781526150196.00013.xml