The Black Guest Arrives

The iron gate is but a ghost of law, The shadow leans against the tram-line's hum. He brings a weight the scales can never hold, A logic where the living must be dumb. He walks through glass, he walks through fire, The city's circuit bleeds in black and white. The visitor has stepped across the line— To rearrange the fabric of the night. The red light blinks and then forgets its name, A stranger counts the city's small betrayals. He walks as though the earth were made of smoke, While ancient logic rusts upon its rails. Break the seal of the closed horizon! Let the unsaid word become a bolt! The Guest has come to harvest what was hidden, To sit upon the bureaucrat's high throne! The iron door swings open on its rust— And what walked in was never made of dust. The shadow walks through walls made thick with salt, A witness with a pair of glass-spun lungs. He breathes the air that we have tried to bolt, And speaks the truth with cold and silver tongues.