Upon a Sunday Morn

Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash

Battered gray train comes roaring in from outer
dark — engine and engineer
in flames.

The machine rips a hole
straight through
the city’s boundary-line.

Red imps pour through the smoldering tear,
eat the homeless in their hidey-holes,
parade around in longshoreman’s faces,
beating on dead-men’s torsos
liked drums.

They swarm the city,
drag startled lovers from beds,
murder sleeping businessmen
with dull ends of fountain pens.

A black letter sealed with golden wax
descends from the sky,
suspended by one filamentous thread.

It just hangs there, unreadable to everyone
dying on the city beneath it;
a message everyone can see
but no one can read.

(This is the vision
I woke up dreaming
on this Sunday morn.)

Sunrise Initiation