They crawl through the remnants of the ice-cascaded leaves,
They listen to the words and the exhalations that you seethe,

They burn into your mind with their dark and stinging presence,
Out of corners of your eyes flashes their consuming iridescence.

Divided we fall to the evil which careens,
But together on all sides there is nothing unseen.

Our covert chorus will never fall,
To the vine of scales that follows all,

The serpent's slick black viewed through the holes in the walls!

A hiss!
A strike!
Too weak!
Too much like,
The darkest *****.

To  what they are, a slithering mass of serpents crawling,
And brawling with the street rats in the night!