A memory of rain

 

Take the trail through the city,

where dreams dye the ground

in oil smear agony.

Where the air is tainted

with the tears of a thousand neon angels.

Every cursed droplet stinging the skin.

The smell of acrid demon's breath

wafts through the grated gills

of the gutter swell,

and the looming towers

pierce the heavens as we walk through hell.

 

Past the graffiti scrawls,

haunted wails crawl

upon warped walls.

Through the disused station hall,

across the wasteland

that even the weeds avoid.

The pathway always circles back.

 

To this place at the beginning

of the end of the darkest night.

 

Where the heart stops

mid attack and screams.

A memory of rain.

Cleansing the streets,

when yesterday

was a burst watermain

of possibility that flowed

down the drain.

 

In the dead of polluted moonlight,

the man in black staggers past,

as he eyes up the backwater night.

A scream in the chasm of his mind.

like a shotgun blast, echoing

a scream of a past life,

left beaten in the overgrown steel forest.

Lost in his own head,

he staggers deeper into this place

he has come to dread.

 

The demons are rife,

but the man strides on by,

eyes to the ground,

watching the dying insects

clinging on to their final choking breaths.

 

Unstringed guitar with

warped wood, and cracked fretboard

hugs tightly against the wall,

to stop the world from crumbling.

A headstone to the life he fled,

for there is no calling in being good

when the night keeps on falling to the dawn.

The Watchman no more,

He heard the hum screaming his name

like a guitar amp feedback loop,

now his heart can’t bear to hear

another dawns song calling.