In the kiln is the doorway to Hell
In the attic is the stairwell to Heaven,

The garden is purgatory
The silent wind a Devil?s dance
Of spirits in waiting,

The beauty that sleeps in the bed
Is really a beast that is bound to be dead
Golden hair curled and long
Upon the pillow, damp and wilting
Supple pearl hands, hemorrhaging and distending,

At the foot of the divan
Is the Grim Reaper
And a demon child
A sylph and the universe flowing about him
The adolescent, who?s doomed to conflagration,
Has wings made from paper thin membrane,

Outside the window is the sun
Behind it is a hole
A mouth that feeds upon cosmoses
In a slow acid digestion
Of agonizing pain,
It is the tax man of all these spheres,
Swallowing the riches that are to be paid
Torturing its debtors with its hankering ways,

On another site
Torn by battle,
A sightless man stands upon the fringe of the theatre of war
Covering his ears to the sound of the screams
Drowning as the tide of human bodies wash over him
In blind, soundless gore
Closing his ears has been his death
For he could not hear the water rush
Or see its mighty curved garnet form bow before him, above him

In a castle
That lies in a fish bowl
An old fool gives a young one advice
As an imprudent father passes his short-sightedness to his son,
This aging king shows off a crown of tin,
Sitting on a glass throne
That bears a crack on one side
And balances on a pin,
His queen, a sea serpent
Wraps tightly about him,
Knowing he is an egotistical lout,
For he cannot see her twisting bulk about his throat,
Past the end of his own nose,

Within my family?s house, that seems a bulging of the earth,
A young girl sits behind a curtain
Upon a splintered bench
Waiting patiently for her parents to return
Who she buried behind the house long ago
And forgot about the crosses
As they blew away in a gust,
Her face is adorned with a sable veil
Clothes of morning worn even now,
Yet she still waits
Her mind fractured by the still,
Her companion, a rag doll
That has no eyes
And a stitched mouth,
Rests upon her knee,
Wanting to tell her they will not return
And that she is an old woman,
But its mouth is hemmed firmly shut,

Another as mute as the doll,
Watches Adonis chase after Aphrodite in quick sand
His hands stretched out towards her perfect figure
That is only stone,

In the home is a ballroom,
That?s floor is ruined with rain,
The muted girl?s sister and lover dance,
Tied to the wall with bandages
And the flow of violins that have snapped strings,
An out of key piano,
An undying love
That is long perished,
A fever that has been sweated out,

Here I stand
Before a shattered mirror
Seeing my eight eyes
Mouths and noses
In the reflective glass,

My hand is bloody,
A shard of it wedged in my lifeline
Upon my palm,

In the kiln is the doorway to Hell
In the attic the stairwell to Heaven,

Moth eaten clothes lye about the loft
Piled by the windows and door,
Flowing out of a trunk,
Spilling like a swollen ocean,
Dripping upon the bloated wood beneath it
Drip, drip, drip, drip...
Plagues my sanity,

So which route shall I take?

I never liked stairs very much
They always seem so high
And to walk to the heavens,
Would surely give me vertigo,
Although the sweetness of that paradise
Is so alluring in the sky,

Fire always scared me so
Flames so excruciating when touched,
The heat unbearable
A roaring frenzy,
A wrongdoer?s embrace,

In the kiln is a doorway to Hell
In the attic is a stairwell to Heaven

Or so the topiary in the grounds say
So does the fellow who wonders about the maze
Speaking to the labyrinth?s shrub borders,

The young man who stands behind,
That?s face also has eight eyes in the mirror,
And hears the clothes dripping as well,
Agrees

He takes my hand,
I can not feel his flesh upon mine,
Promising he will show me which path to take

Helping me to decide to enter either
The kiln
or
attic