Four Angles

They are taking my picture
from four angles.
They are the monitors of mystery,
the wicked lawmen
in the shadow city.

I pick at the scab
of my madness
until it bleeds again.
Why do they do this to me?
I have harmed no one.
Yet they call me on the phone
speaking in a coded language.
I cannot understand why
they mock and taunt me

They take me to a hospital
in the garbage dump
outside the shadow city.
“This is the proper place for you,”
say the monitors of mystery.
Every day they take
my picture from four angles.

I forever read with four eyes
a passage in one of their horrible bibles,
and await the darkness.

Gary Crawford is the author of two books of poetry, Poems of the Divided Self and In Shadow Lands, and the short story collection Gothic Fevers. I have published works of literary scholarship and criticism, such as Ramsey Campbell, J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography, and Robert Aickman: An Introduction. He is also the founder and editor of Gothic Press (http://www.gothicpress.com/.)

Find more by Gary William Crawford in the Author Index.

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.