Posted by Atticus on December 4, 2004, at 14:31:02
Dwellers in Perdition’s Tiled Tunnels
Red-eyed wolf
With tangled strands
Of coal-black night terrors
For fur
Is padding
Along sidewalks built
Of headstone slabs
Carved from blocks of frozen
Damp and gurgled screams
That rise
In a chorus
Only canine ears can hear,
Roused by the pressure
Of each paw’s passing weight
As the lupine wanderer
Treads
Through hissing volcanic
Vents of steam
Escaping
From the underworld
Like the wraiths of suicides
Sliced by subway wheels,
Wisps slipping past
Steel bars set
Into the agonized cement
That longs to shiver
But remains inert,
Paralyzed
By the sheer weight of the pain
It harbors,
As tales entwined
In the rising
Subterranean rain clouds
Are whispered by
Dwellers in Perdition’s tiled tunnels
Into the wolf’s waiting ears,
Before the sinuous plumes
Pulse toward neon goddess tears
Frozen in streams of runes overhead,
Causing the incandescent tubes
To flicker
Momentarily
In a gesture of sympathy
For the luckless
And the lost
Who tell the same
Damn stories
Every night of the year,
And only the wolf,
The cruel ravenous wolf,
Never tires
Of devouring their torment,
And howling it
Into the pores
Of anyone
Who isn’t busy
Getting high
Or getting f*cked
Or getting killed,
An aria sung
In a minor key
About minor souls
Who led minor lives
And died minor deaths,
Wafting
Amid swirls
Of carbon monoxide
And cordite,
As all the others
Whose final gasps
Slid between lips
That felt
Insignificant
Invisible
Intangible
Still wait,
Hoping
Against hope
To be eulogized
At least once,
Just once,
When the wolf someday
Happens
To come their way.
poster:Atticus
thread:424373
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040925/msgs/424373.html