A Pale Skull

A heart in a cage made stale
Like the wine of the harlot
Venom and blood
Venom in blood
Heels high to heaven
Stomping and kicking and dancing mad
Talons and the gnashing teeth

Love was lost in her eyes
Framed in her face and she's licking her lips
Mutations growing in her womb
Semen stains on her dress
The semen stains

A child in a dumpster cries
A dog in the hallway is barking
A flaccid old man naked and wandering
He's muttering lies

So long to wretched mediocrity
So long to lonely starless nights
So long to the abhorrence of being

Cancerous and wry
Rife with the tumors and soft to the touch
Tethered to the stake and left there to die
Picked clean by the insects
A pale skull lit the night.
Eye sockets empty and the jaw set to grin

Just a skull in the desert and a bottle of gin