Falling Stars

What on earth has possessed my friend?

Where could we find an exorcist

capable of ending this trend?

When the mend was around the bend,

he’d found himself alone again,

drenched in the stench of shit and piss.

How long could he keep doing this?

What's it mean for him to be free,

actually, factually?

What does it mean, what can it be,

between the lines his friends can’t read?

In those not-so-empty spacings,

do they see the serpents weaving

where he’s taken his swallows, deep?

Where he breathes the sweet antifreeze,

face-down in his shallowest deeds?

Who’s honestly soldered on he,

the contract of collar and leash?

Who’d make sure he’d drown in the sea?

Who's not who they’re supposed to be?

Who would think that that shit’s funny,

or those actions necessary?

Phantoms distant in the rafters.

What is it that they are after?

Symphonies of catastrophe?

Epitomes of agony?

They watch him bleed; no sympathy

for a giant down on his knees.

Young and tender delicacy

grown relentless and recklessly,

prey for two-legged plagues and disease.

Always in his proximity,

they feed upon his screams of grief,

beside the beasts he’s not yet seen;

bastard rats that smile with sharp teeth,

seething packs of blood-thirsty fleas,

crows that snicker, “Bon Appétit!”

and toads which his death will have pleased,

who'd cause him to croak in their greed.

It was all a part of the plan

to take from him all that they can.

Claws in clause of death, guaranteed.

Pound for pound, he falls to the crowd;

but they don’t catch and he goes down.

The snapping of the sapling’s rings,

sounds like a dinner bell singing,

to apostles of falsities.