Lowstand Leviathans

Lost secrets of the earth And reticence from birth Dark sediments and creeping strain Our negligence conveys A function of malaise That overprints our shrouded pain But rising from the mantle Braided phantoms beckoning asternal They speak with tongues twisted In words we can't perceive The flood waters abate, leviathans in wait Their hulking forms of rife despair A monument to this: the damage we dismissed The cenotaphs of scars we bear Rising tides raise all ships and yet provide An upwelling that dredges bones Our violent past and pride enthroned The secrets that we drowned Lashing masses from the fragments of a bygone generation Twisted forms in murky waters sway with spellbound aberration Overgrown with crowns and coral shrouds that stifle what was missed Wreaths of baseless accusations decorate and bind our wrists Their names may be unknown But deep down in our bones They haunt our nights and plague our days Once we pay them mind They detach and resign To float amidst the waves As peninsular graves In discordant chorus, they cry out Their words are alien and shrill Beneath the surface, we discern The ancient dialect they trill You give us form when you give in Armed with our reprieve Denying them the ease To lurk unshrouded marrow deep Descending to the mantle Braided phantoms reckoning eternal They speak with tongues twisted In words we now perceive The flood waters abate, leviathans in wait Their hulking forms of rife despair A monument to this: the damage we dismissed The cenotaphs of scars we bear Rising tides raise all ships and yet provide An upwelling that dredges bones Our violent past and pride enthroned The secrets that we drowned