East Of The Wall The Ladder
This crowd: a fleshy lake. The throngs as smallish waves,
folds like skin upon the sow. A faint din as spit and
speech caw- the rank broth that stews while boiled alive.
“Who are you to cast your net so wide, and deepen the
maw? Cannibal, your hooks blood deep in hide. This too
shall pass. You’ll find yourself at last.”
Couldn’t anyone else have tried to carve their hold? The
mark of hands. Couldn’t anyone else have climbed the
bones of old? The bridge of man, its steps cobbled stones
from sand. One way mirror, cracked and leering, watch us
crawl.
A coarse ascension, a vulgar dream dragged kicking back
to the floods. A crass intrusion: the eyesore tower was
crashed by swarms… a herd of cackles, a school of flesh
that scorns the touch.
“The only face that scorns this fate is ours: self same,
ripe to faint. Once down, the stench, the taint. So raise
the eyesore tower. We’ll raze the rows we felled. When
stayed the hand of storms, down poured the fruit of
arms.”
