Fever Sheds

A man stare's into fetid gutters
And leering Meriden stares back
What cleanses is beyond him
What cures? Far above him
A pantheon of pestilence
Paupers enshrined in Fever Sheds
From holy typhus' hands
As lowly drudge of noxious seeds to sow
A consecration of inflammation
From callous soil did grow

As blighted walls for gangrenous minds
For rusting spirits and fever dreams
Opiate madness and sulphurous haze
All cathedrals to quarantine, naught
But abattoirs for screaming lunatics
With blessed brimstone in their lungs

All that is dissolute and loathsome becomes his city
A byword for intractable human misery
And as they lead him through the gauntlet
The spires are reaching high, playing arms of Atlas
Belching forth their cancerous mire
Poverty's sores weep into these gaping mouths
The gaping mouths of child and gutter-dweller

This is how a nation dies
Mile by God-forsaken mile
Like seeds upon the callous soil
Mile by barren mile

Gas lights with tired eyes
Their glare as perdition's outer circles
Rest upon him, the conspirator
In machinations with Merihem
Yet, are his maladies
To be counted amongst his blessings?
His skin rots and falls from his bones

In driving rain, from bridges o'er noisome waters hanging
He carves his words, in anguished rage
On the pillars of the golden ribcage
Withering beast under dolorous sky
With gaunt, stooped wretch plunging harpoon
Into the eye, saying: All greatness firm in the storm