The red bricks bear the markings
Hieroglyphs of perpetual pain

Clawed last breaths
Etched the walls
Their cave dwelling
With their last pictures

Frenzied wailing and the draughts of death
Chill the night air
where a Calliope of pain
that cannot shatter the red brick
of plaintive voices in the throes
plays its discordant melody

Ineffectual
As they stack themselves
As so much frenzied cordwood
Fearful of inhaling the toxic blend
In a Xyklon universe

The king of the hill drapes those below
In a shawl of remorse

Outside,
they could hear their mournful rantings
behind the shuttered windows
where they work to breathe clean air
that will not set them free

and they move hurriedly past 11 block
fearful that it will consume them
as the ashy remains sprinkle the night air
in a dusty refrain
and last stars of living twinkle
and burn out in a sputter

and they shake off the dust of men
to live yet another day

©2019 Sy Roth

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Sy Roth is a retired school administrator and has finally found the sounds of silence and the time to think whole thoughts. This has led him to find words and the ability to shape them. He has published in Visceral Uterus, Amulet, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Barefoot Review, Haggard and Halloo, Misfits Miscellany, Mad Swirl, Larks Fiction Magazine, Danse Macabre, Bitchin’ Kitch, Bong is Bard, Humber Pie, Poetry Super Highway, Penwood Review, Masque Publications, Foliate Oak, Miller’s Pond Poetry and The Eloquent Atheist.