THE ALLEY

Shattered brick, brown rusted iron
Testify; the gutter, strewn with debris
To overflow with dark passion, fire of

Misplaced loyalty, seeking only to flee
When discovery is imminent,
Truth hangs overhead unimpeachably.

When blood and nerve flow and fray,
Glorified in their absence, mummified as the remains
Of a pitiable lie, then those blinded by it, sick enough to stay

Bonded, bound to putrefy as witness, the stains
Of darkened memory, free only of freedom's constraint,
When honor melts away, the heart grows faint.

The heart turned hollow, bloodless as stone
As the walls so blank and tall revile
The crawlers, the flesh, exposed bone

Bleaching white in the city's white heat
And the soul count mounts in a deathless pile
Where so much life becomes so much meat.

There are rats here and smaller crawling things
Leading barely an existence,
In instinctive prowlings, appetites soon bring

Untimely catastrophe to creatures void of sense
No disaster is great or small, only unfeeling consequence
Of having been done unto before doing so, a mindless penance.


© Celeste Plowden 2010