the eyes of the dead
stare at me
through the diaphonous gauze
wrapped tightly
around my face
the cries gurgle
deep in my heaving chest
as pus like cataracts
drip down the gray faces
pressed tightly
to the curtain
hanging around my bed

the needle
driven deep into
puckered flesh
sends the cold touch
of the grave
in carefully regulated
doses through
collapsing veins
to gather like dew
in the cobweb lined
ventricles of a once
beating heart

the damned and the dying
play poker
eternal salvation
a sty in eye of forever
a concept
inconceivable
to temporary agonies
stretched across eons
as the clock faces away
ashamed of its own
implacable sorrow