Cities Of The Dark Poem by Richard Weissman

Bred near York - Hatred of darkness caressed souls passionately, darkly,
'member it then - urine scented corners, sooty blackness more ash than dirt,
And relentless howlings of maggot-infested machineries,
And three-piecers, with zombied-blank, eyeless, briefed faces
and their number running, mind gaming calculations,
All was cold, wintry black knighted and I despised it.
So I 'Stanged west with V-8 adrenals and music of light to exorcise that cold demoned hellfire of Yorktown.
And I descended from on high,
Swept into Angelesian's summery winter and prayed that finally, graciously, I'd been redeemed.
The sun bleeds here, warms coldest hearts, relaxes stiff upper lips
'til fears are wholly vanquished
and vulnerability reigns like cloudless days.
Then comes nightfall,
And the celluloid horror amplified by dreams of famed sunshine
wreaks fear-drenched havoc on naive Angelesian Hills.
By then it's too late - The fallen have already transmuted,
With skins from thick to thin,
Now fated to an inverted vampire mythos -
We die on Sunset and resurrect somewhere in the pollutant-stained
'morrow
of sunburnt Angelesian Skies.

-From "Voices of the Dark" (1991)