There Is A Serpent In The Night Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

There is a circular serpent swallowing its tail.
Representing eternal life in the gated catacombs
Of Brompton Cemetery, London, which houses
Both saints and sinners alike.
That leaves its lair to visit the foot of my bed.
Its eyes spin a hypnotic, piercing spell around my room.
It takes on the form of slow-moving, velvet green curtains,
The moonlit orange painted anaglypta wallpaper, and
Its eyes are embossed, burning upon my own.
Like glowing paper lanterns on fire.

It whispers, Child, I dare you to sleep.
To close your eyes or weep.
Child, I will visit you nightly now, each midnight hour
Like a growing purple trumpet vine flower
At the foot of your bed, and coil around your feet.
I'll entwine your torso and your mouse-like soul.
And swallow you whole from head to tail.
Child, you and I will be as one, like kin.

I'll dine on your fears and consume
All your bitter, briny tears, and you will be drained
Of your warm blood and turn to marble stone,
Cold to the touch like my clammy, supple superior skin.
But by the time you no longer cry
And I no longer care to visit you,
The world will hold no more tears or fears for you.

Death will be like a newborn cradled in your arms,
Suckling in the night. Gazing at serpent eyes,
All cried out as incredible, as dead stars
Rebirthed, still possessed of eternal light.
And it will whisper back to me in the darkness
From the shadows under the bed to the catacombs;
The skulls of saints and sinners, I know
Sit on the shelf and beneath the bed sheets of mist
That sinks into oil wells like dead eye sockets.
You have nothing more to fear than life itself.