Blind jackals listen as the dead just lay and stare. Something rotten shudders beneath the lid of the cracked pine of the boxes. Wizened throats choke back unearthly screams as pale skinned doormen prowl the concrete kingdom below the midnight skies. Hunters in bow ties, dismantling bones with practised ease. The small man sits at his table in the room. He waits. His victims will come to him with hands out-stretched. He wants their money. They take his in increments more powerful than pain. The divil cashes in more chips. The roulette ball lands on the blackest of black. Another life ends when debts go unpaid. A curtain falls, the audience are blind to all but the act.
Shovels at dawn, the dirt pile grows higher. Money is located in the dead pockets they play with. The shoes, always the shoes that are left as the message. Laces like nooses, dust particles as clues, the hyenas they scatter while corpses gather in masses. The riding hood races while the wolf changes his cloak. Meat juices and slaver, gnaw marks on bones. Lime burns through the deepest of slashes, teeth fall out but never return to the ashes. The collector never befriends the mark. Finances and friends usually cancel each other out. Earth cavities laugh, their bellies are full of life's victims. Silence is lonely as the roar of tepid life blood seeps in warm pools. Genuine killers, they wander the night. We link arms and weep as we follow behind the coffins.
