Halloween

In rabbit warrens, burrows and dens
I have been tumbling down for days,
Blinded by the lights flashing between roots
And clutching my head as I spin into the dark.

First, a pale torch singer sang me to sleep in the dawn
We lay together, two cold creatures shivering in the womb
Then rose, made of stone, to part in haste before the day.
She left a billowing blood-red token on my bed.

I slept the sun out and, stump-legged, loped
To where my comrades wandered to and fro
We watched as the pagan masses gathered together
With the gleam of electricity sounding a pulse in their strobed eyes
My friend the shark grinned as his eyes turned black
And the saviour ran from room to room,
Tending the sick and wiping blood from his glasses.

Then, a kind of ecstasy took me as I climbed the stair
Death, in the corner, smiled and ran his fingers through his hair.

I woke at the end of the world
Stood up too fast and my head fell off
And as I wandered the dark streets home
That pale torch singer's face shone bright in my twilight mind.