The gnawing in my mind
Like a hammer striking a bell:
Riding in an iron Balloon
Buoyed in a noxious plume
Dark tunic slowly yellowed in the flame of acrid gas
Round goggles of the iron mask corroding
Flakes of steel falling away
Floating above a skinny caustic river
Encircling winding channels
Banks of concrete bleached by the sun
Endlessly eaten
By the current's maw
Hard white lights sheen on the surface
Where bridges collapsed
The rhythm of my breath
The wisp of a noxious zephyr
And the steady flow of the stream below
Are the only sounds
Out of green purple twilight
A zeppelin comes from the east
Propellers humming
Flying behemoth with an
Arcade of steel and glass
Draws near
Delivers my poison, and,
My quaking mind vindicated lastly like a dream:
Pass the lips 'ere the river of song into the chorus of the
Wide golden shining sea
Brilliant coral cascading in blooming rainbow jungles
Dance of Life teeming
Beneath the surf