Chapter Minus Zero

Streets dry tears and hustle shades of the greasy sidewalk
and Poe's ravens shrill cry, and pierce night's bloody tympana.
night turns to dream, turns to nightmare, turns amusement park,
no reality's intended to be trusted, so we hide in the shadows,
we drink from the gutter, we eat the moss of rot walls...

"nevermore" they weep...
and the calm of the night is no more than a child illusion of sleepy fairy tales,
the calm is the wait, and the wait pre-dictates the kill
covered by the honey melody of wounded animals and struggle.
and bugs try not to buzz, and snakes reach tree tops and hail the moon...

and they all try to figure out the blurry words you left me
under the grooviness of a shredded black square on pen lines
and they all scream "nevermore" while reading the Chapter Zero,
and tell ancient tales of past memories and burn forbidden books...

and i end up on the floor of the rusty bar 'round the corner,
lightened by languishing yellow lamps, gulped in cheap red wine
and i drown... i drown in the sorrow of the last words you left me.
and i write them down and wait for the broken clock to save time and vanish rage...

with time, he says... and the pointers never dare a step,
and the bell clapper's apathetic and quiet as hell...
and I'm injected with poison of broken dreams,
and dream broken truth...

and i wait while the darkness goes, inebriated for the day...
a man of mettle walks under a wooden dreadnought...
retired vampire, junkie, bum...
his iron knuckles could smash any solid glass heart, and melt the ice we freeze in...

We're down to minus zero Centigrade degrees...
We're down to minus zero altitude and under dirt...
and your photograph just fell off my wall like an autumn leaf...