The scream that shears souls off like tear-away suits. On the gasp, those souls are sucked inside that wide mouth. So hot does the heat grow that it glows like a flaming pumpkin. The monster’s got a bellyful of souls, fired into a forge of rage.

Wild-eyed and never a child — birthed into a blind fury. Sightless, those wide eyes — all expression no vision. Like the teeth that aren’t free to chew, but none-the-less seem fierce in form.

It looks the part of one who hates love, loves hate, but knows neither.

In ancient days, it came this way,
and now it’s living among us.
What’s more, it seems, it’s here to stay.
It’s sunk its flag and worn its ruts.

It built its mansion where once stood huts.
It’s cattle graze the fallow land,
but something about it stirs the guts.
And now the people want it banned.

They’ve called a meeting, made their stand,
and found a verse by which to curse
it to a life in the southlands —
Where live the shunned, loathed, and perverse.

How often should one let one’s Hyde out for a walk?
Just the thought sounds dreadful & unacceptable, right?

But, then again, how many beasts are made more docile by being caged, denied, and disavowed?

It can’t be many.

One never learns the rules of care and feeding for one’s Hyde.

“Just chain the poor thing up in the attic, and hope it doesn’t claw its way through the roof.”

Most people will say, “I don’t have a Hyde.”

They’re the most adorable of all —

like kids who think brown cows make chocolate milk.

They first noticed creepers crawling
into the dingy depths of caves —
impossibly feeding on that rich darkness.

Something was out of balance.

Something was wrong in the machine —
the one they called it the engine of evil —
and either it was running over the redline,

or its counterpart was faltering.

Either way,

War.
Pestilence.
Famine.
Genocide.

All for lack of a mechanic.

There’s ecstasy in the moment one quits kicking;
when tension blanches from the body.

One becomes a flaccid mass, dragged through white water.

One feels the gravity diminish in the dips,
but — unlike rolling into an undertow —
one is always violently righted.

One’s head bursts above water —
gasping reflexively.

One survives like the stumbling drunk who tumbles down a staircase —
only to murder by dislodging a sober person from the penultimate step.

flat tones,
heard all alone —

In the winter of my madness
when the discord played most loudly,
notes dripped an acid sadness —
my heart worn sleeveless, faux-proudly.

But I didn’t drown in black ballads.
Tides never stayed overhead long.
I’d crawl upward, cold and pallid,
my head ringing with that foul song.