Surveillance

Walking through darkness like damp fur,
each step a smothering slow beast-lick
rasping my thoughts with fetid purr

my mundane tongue lay faint and sick,
long lacking taste of honeyed phrase,
made silent from fear of the lunatic

eye of the Moon, twisted round in phase,
blindly sweeping, blandly seeking,
three quarters closed, its unfixed gaze

searching out mouse-men silently creeping
by shadowy watchers that hum and whirr,
counting the steps of those not sleeping,

watching me, and him, and her,
she weeping, he sleeping, me walking,
walking through darkness like damp, dank fur.

B.T. Murtagh