Midnight Service

From cracks in the sidewalk
From tenement stairs
And all of the dark secret places of night
Comes an echo of dreadful and dangerous talk
Of meetings arranged to trade dubious wares

Subterranean creatures, they surface in hordes
Responding to some secret code of the street
Cautiously creeping to prearranged places
Through alleyways marked by invisible cords
Propelled by their hunger, they finally meet

Silhouetted by street-lights, cloaked in night air
The faithful appear, but they take up no space
Empty and lonely and wandering and wild
Drawn to this limbo by mutual despair
Seeking oblivion from life’s vicious pace

Spurred on by the fervour that frazzles their brain.
Meeting concluded, they vanish; it’s ended
This worship of demons, this trading of souls
Then the Prince of All Evil laughs loud with disdain
His deal holds no offer of sentence suspended

But the sidewalks and tenements will shudder and tremble
When whispers of meetings are echoed again
Haunting the air like the Pied Piper’s music
Calling the faithful once more to assemble
To dance to the tune of the Devil’s refrain.


Zannie