In A Small Dark And Gloomy Town Poem by Francois Hoon

In a small dark and gloomy town
I awake one night with chaos in the air
I can feel a mood brewing, pressing like a frown

Getting up from my bed the voices I can hear
Of people screaming and running
Overcome by fear

Looking out the window of my wooden cottage room
I see frantic panic in the dirt roads rife
Scattering away from the forest beyond the town
People rush in frenzy for the sake of their life

I walk out the door with a calm beyond myself
Seeing limbs hanging limp of many in distress
Some lying in the dust, unable to move
Accepting their fate, but in anguish no less

Going down the hill to the forest ahead
Houses are ransacked and doors torn apart
Bodies and blood drape the walls and the floor
And on a corner lies a crushed apple cart

From the woods in front the last cries grow silent
Like a hush satisfied with a sacrifice of hoards
But content just a moment as its need re-emerge
Now lingering in the leaves and the broken floorboards

Walking ahead I can feel no fear
Into the trees and the silence of dark
The wind whistles restless in the treetops above
And the smell of blood wafts from the bark

Into the gloom I see figures moving
Lithely and large with deep-grating breath
Hound-like shadows rising twice my height
With jaws still sunk into feasts of death

Upon my notice sudden zeal overwhelms them
And with passion and glee they storm my way
Pushing each other in absolute eager
Desiring flesh like there’s no break of day

I stand in sureness as the hellhounds approach
For I know no harm from them can befall me
The first lunges and grabs for my head
But makes no contact and falls down dead
The others follow but collapse the same
Having no answer to the power in faith’s name

(2009-09-30)