Come, old friend

let us travel the tunnels again

and leave behind the nightmare trail

of our past.

 

Our doom time was not the midnight hour

but the creeping dawn when it tacked

its sickly citrine star to the sky.

 

What misfortune that night

when we tasted our own elixir —

a potent brew

from the black stove of purgatory.

 

Let us drink now to our last rave,

to the sinister concoction of that night.

 

Everything has turned to dust—

the glinting steel,

the cleaved light of the heart.

The burner dims

as Benjamin’s paper face turns to ashes.

 

“Hey up, hey up” at the entrance.

The voice still calls, tinny and hollow,

because it, too, is part of the dust.

Password unspoken, we enter in silence.

 

We have arisen from trance at last.

In the musty labyrinths

it matters not that we are carved

from dust motes in the air.

Our flesh and bones are useless here.

 

Others still dance to music

they can no longer hear.

Inverted shadows

on the walls of another plane

wait for the last hand to be played.

 

But caution

in the lustful arms of darkness

where dreams are too willing

to turn to nightmare.

The warmth of you is enough.

 

Let us drink now

from these chalices of air

and leave the word unspoken

then continue onto the end,

beyond the door.

A secret place

where they will never find us.