Callous flame!  The wall beckons tardy shadows; an eye of minute distance

where time is spare to change the movement –

fingers twitching like the curve of a Count’s back,  black on the wall -

a great mountain of ash.

I have my all, bent, doubled, cold chattering teeth

and Poe stowed in the gaps of my window

where in creeps the moors, swabbed with a woman’s pulse.

 

My Hysteria Hour is here –

my tact slack and bottle spinning, the heavens over my door

and hell rung out in the embroided cloths of patterned rouge smacks.

A feather snaps - too sharp my tongue upon the giving glass,

and the large, large wall

comes over, hag and call – three sisters to my gawp

and nonsense.

 

There is no room at all

for such a twisting sapience, to pluck me in a tapestry of well wit

but strange to see things that don’t exist –

Hush! Hush! Out! Out! The night wears me white –

a shape in the mirror, a –

 

There is music here –

a nautical shanty that the floorboards creak;

rolls of old oak, seeping roots, cloying, rust-fudged rocks,

ankle grabbers,

onyx and opiate,

and bubble daft –

 

the candle laughs – my breath three inches above my face

grinning back,

a liquid thick as sleep

but wide awake, I tingle

 

and the candle bends, flickering experimental.