This inconsolable silence
And the thunderous crack,
Crack of a whip
Gloats of its spoils,
Breeds ever our toils
As we manage the ravenous gaps.

Our sweat drips in droplets;
There is naught to stop it,
So we surrender to chasms
Deeper than mountains…
And fall to the unknown abyss.
There error, terror of emptiness will live.

Amongst the rocks and old rubble,
We now blindly struggle
Until nauseous and sunken forever.
Dejected and beaten,
We sit alone weeping
Until this silence decides to speak up.

A smell slightly tickles –
Who is here? What has entered?
Does this blackness grow weaker?
You see the faintest of sparks.
Explosions! Flames raining!
Change like the crack of a whip.

Smells of cinder and charcoal
Erupt, as with violence,
And the flames find birth,
Find worth in your hair.
The panic and slapping, long fuses –
Your skin will soon turn black.

Heathen lips forming prayer
As, layer by layer,
Your skin does turn to ash.
You are soot for the next one –
Bones add to the rubble.
One should always take heed of the gaps.

Kevin Sampsel