A Dancer Dances Poem by Niall Lawmile

There’s a clamour at the club, feral fervour

And the Dancer de-briefs, de-clothes, de-dames

And picks her favourite from her list of names.



There are dogs in the seats pawing at the stage

Grinning starved, and rank blood in their bare

and the Dancer turns to meet their stare



A man lights a match and cries, laughs both

And sets it to a pile of fifties, all

And the Dance revels in the squall



And the inferno sighs and soars

And the flesh melts off, drips to acid pools

And the dogs in the front seats drool



The Dance lives on, the speakers squeal

A protest slain; and the dogs still yearn

And the dancer’s bones to dust, turn.