Abortuary at Dawn

The Fall of the Walls of Jericho (1866) by Gustave Dore

Cramped as so many crates cemented to the street

Grey at dawn in an unfamiliar way hulked

The leaden mill with an anxious hunger roused

To life for death and the keeping of reprobate dross.

Grey at dawn in an unfamiliar way hulked

A cadre of soul-slept assassins, choking and drugged

To life for death and the keeping of reprobate dross

In Jericho, O’ Jericho, where rust and moth reign.

A cadre of soul slept assassins, choking and drugged,

Shrink at the vertebrate living, salt angle-spread to season and sting

In Jericho, O’ Jericho, where rust and moth rein

The women, lost and all too not, shuffling to their doom.

Shrink at the vertebrate living, salt angle-spread to season or sting,

All you devils cornice-perched as at a damnable play.

The women, lost and all too not, shuffling to their doom,

Shall hear—drink or drown on water squeezed from stone.

All you devils cornice-perched as at a damnable play,

Your smouldering fate cannot touch these babes. You too

Shall hear—drink or drown on water squeezed from stone

By the Hand that tightens, tightens, tightens. 

Your smouldering fate cannot touch these babes. You too

Fear the Father of these ghostly orphans held

By the Hand that tightens, tightens, tightens

In the mute apocalypse of dawn.

Fear the Father of these ghostly orphans held

In the mute apocalypse of dawn.