The Vaults Poem by Tim Liardet

Down, down, deeper and deeper down, entering
the prison's underground chamber where fear is a sort
of aloe sapping the tongue, on the brink of zero hour:
every heavy iron gate which has to be unlocked and locked
wails on its hinges, wails for its want of lubrication,
then thud-echoes shut, then thud-echoes shut,
the last of eight heavy gates behind us thud-echoes shut.
Claustrophobia, no falsifying dream—it is as if
we are welded into the hold, the lid in its seals,
and the chamber itself is about to flood,
to flood: armed with counted pencils, protractors and Donne,
we are sombre when we move up in masks to our places as
a highpitched intensifying note (become
intolerable) passes out of human hearing.