Evening Stroll

And I let despair take a mean walk

through a seedy neighborhood

Where nothing good had ever frequented... 

Where staccato steps rang on the concrete

The street hush with bated breath

And the chiming of a broken swing set

Still warm with children

Holding on with sticky fingers

before their mothers bid them inside 

Startled by sounds of gunfire

And even further, where the sky glowed

An ominous red

And in the air echoed the soft strings of death

And further still

Where the floor was lava and the eyes that followed were no longer that of men

And crawled finally, into the belly 

Of a fork-tongued beast

At the end of it all, my despair 

Was no more