an anesthesia as quiet as

mustard gas
with it's creeping cloud passing through barbed wire with a magnificent yellow intangibility;
slow-moving and inevitable, unavoidable, and deathly--
--it's silent stalking is the breath of the Holy Ghost.

an anesthesia as visible as*

a mute scream
from the cracked beaks of all-black birds as they *croak outside the thin, thin, thin, panes;
birds ruffling and rustling like reptiles that knew better
and beat the game that the mammals never tried.

Pressing, muffling, a heat so harsh and deep I wake from my sleep, running away from the pull of a endless dark tide. So dark the breaks cannot be seen in the black gulf. I am haunted.

I am haunted.
I am haunted.

I cannot sleep, I cannot dream. There is no rub--all folly and hubris brings the death knell.

Where is the source?
To whom must I kneel?

I can feel are my bruised knees from falling prey to false idols,
                   but all I can hear are the creaking ropes of hung robbers.