Primeval Tanking Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Congratulations on your downward spiral,
The self replicating coils of the inky stairwell
Disappear into her bindi,
Sinkhole the mortgage floorboards all the way
Down to the last layer of hell,
Where the octogenarians are ice-fishing
Up to their necks in the lake of frozen sinners,
Right into the 3rd mouth of the devil.
Sitting with Cassius you ask him why he wasn’t
A greater criminal. He replies, “Who are you
Anyway? I am the great Cassius.” Then he goes
Right on being chewed like raw hamburger
Between the devil’s bleeding gums,
Moaning ever so slightly, parting his lips
Like a butterfly on the web of a white midnight.
The rest of the senator is gone into pink beefsteak for the
Gullet, his decapitation retaining the sightless ego;
Lucifer is too busy chewing to palaver,
His teeth like sharp pews receding up the church of this throat,
And his wings are churning like the great putrescent windmill.
Sick cats have crawled into the shadows of his
Armpits to die, and they smell like mildew under her eyes
Who have been asleep too long,
Lacquered shut like difficult windows,
Eyelashes clasped in a terrible nightmare which has her in throes,
One she refuses to part with, and lies there like
A rusting Disney world princess, her dress mottled
And felted with vermilion lichen, the house we once lived in
Melted about her as the forest has stepped in like
A locksmith after the final foreclosure notice,
Hiding her from view as he does his job,
Reinventing her chastity so I no longer am allowed my familiar approach.