On snow, his padded footfalls echo low
Heart beats: haste, fear
As none but its reverberations know
The ancient horror lurking near
A flash! Before the darkness rushes in
Not night but something deeper
Tentacles binding from within
Swift minions of a speaker
Whose very voice is sin
Whispering, listen, listen, in the language of the wind
Across what remains of summer's leaves
A murmured knowledge of the fate of thieves
And as the stolen idol drops
And the ancient one appears
His eyes begin to bleed
Discongealing the accumulation of his fears

Smoothly, she slinks onto the window sill,
silky body settling before tall pane of glass;
Outside, the city’s down and out
Outside, the city’s golden light
and darkest dark.
She curls,
long tail around slick body
and stares out
for the one who stares back.

Tonight,
It’s an empty window opposite,
A single frame of
oh, what her life could be.
She’s never seen more
doesn’t yearn to,
Just for her amore
her golden tabby love.

Ah, there he is,
a pounce atop window sill;
he stares at her
who stares back
his joli chat noir (pretty black cat).

But it’s all too soon
when she’s wrapped in arms too smooth
and a voice,
lacking feline’s purr
slurs,
“Ah, puppy love, Rosette.
It’s all  just puppy love.”

The sidewalk shone and glittered,
Under the gaze of the moon.
The crickets' endless singsong
Had followed them since June.

The crunching of plants
And the yelping of dogs,
And the glowing of lights
And the singing of frogs,
And the blinks and winks
Of distant starshine
Trailed them as they walked.

The heady scent of night
Was deep and blue.
It stuck to their clothes and skin,
And it pooled beneath their shoes.

Quiet steps
And whisp'ring clouds,
Lonely lights
And shimm'ring shrouds
And the brights and whites
Of summer midnight
Crowned them as they talked.

The darkness
Paved a shimmering path
To a quiet world
Brushed with sighs and silver.

To love and be loved      is to be in the
atmospheric warmth      of feeling complete.

Slow rains, but the days working,
No pain, and the god's burning,
You tell me my taxes don't matter, when the game's spooky?'
I said my brain hurts, but no movies,
So meet me at the drop back, last gulp,
A glass of your white juice, with no pulp
but when the robots start beeping, light switch, up, down, backward,
it doesn't even count when the wires in your head spark.

1.

steel-coloured streaks of clouds
(or questionable chemical trails)

driving lines through
the surface of the sky.

the concrete pavements,
smeared in patches
of ashen blackness

veiling the bleak horizon
in a tattered smokeskin.

the sun here is as supine
as the ruins that will lie,
smouldering deep beneath
its’ silvery shadowed outline.

the clouds here seem
formed of steel,
only very odd often
are they revealed.

hiding daylight,
dimming our dreams,
like catalysts to loss.