The Fog, a Poem

That feeling you get—a phantom’s electric hand on your neck
When your eyes fall on a hooded visitor in the doorway
Who has no face—just a smirking stretch of smooth skin
The cold darkness that moves in the tubes of your
Stomach like a moth’s wing—a quivering flap
It lingers in the air tonight, masked with such fog
That might adorn the sky in your most feverish nightmares
Orange lamplight sinking to the ground in defeated gasps
Invisible rain drips from unseen pipes, demonic percussion
Like one would hear mingling with whispered screams
On the dense black nights that plague the agitated jungles of Africa
The fog, this legendary—this mythical beast I speak of, the faceless visitor
That stands at an angle in your doorway and howls
With silent laughter that ignites in your brain
Fog, hanging in the air like the ones who watch us
In the graveyards, gray forms that stand among the trees
The stars, the moon, the elephant clouds—all murdered by
This unwelcome guest, silently annihilated with one swipe of a
Slick knife through their glowing celestial throats
I walk along the empty street, its dead eyes glazed
And voices murmur in sinister dialects
Shadows flit before me—then flap like bats into the sky
Muddled vampires standing crooked against the white
Those faceless visitors—laughing, whispering, watching
Tonight I walk along the darkest depths of the ocean
Muted submarine sounds thundering in the blackness
Impossible monsters of the sea gliding over my head
My footsteps like mercury, footsteps like those that imprinted the
Ghostly horizon of the moon and slid off the side
Drifting serenely down to Tartarus, dark eternity
This fog, cursed cloud of musical insanity
Wicked silver spirit escaped from Pandora’s pretty box
Supernatural maze that rides the wind
It shrinks the world to this deathly orange street
Guarded by the outlines of houses in which asthmatic
Spirits reside, strings of skin reaching over their empty eye sockets
Past these billowing walls of devilish fog, I fear,
Lies only vacant space—cold dark dark dark eternity
Waiting to pounce on me, the shivering hairless rat I am
Waiting to pounce on me like a hellish lion of the Underworld, ripping me apart
And letting my intestines dance gaily against its fleshless jaw
My brain crushed in an instant between its saber tooth fangs
This fog, fallen angel that haunts the earth
Trailing lost wanderers through the swaying woods
Moaning bewitched pagan hymns that float on the groaning breeze
That rattles through the cackling trees
That peers through your blinking bedroom window
Fog, prophet of Hades, guard of the night
Gray, shapeless Minotaur
Faceless visitor--in your doorway