What is below in the Hungry Black Maw?

Tyler R. Martin

There’s a house at the end of the street where
All the little ghouls collude to meet and,
In plumes of smoke and cigarette ash, they
Invade the solace of a forgotten past. Where
All window panes are thoroughly smashed by
By wonton bottles of boozy glass
And the drywall bursts in thick sullen clouds of the
White plaster shrouds of those thrashes, so loud! .
These white plaster shrouds precipitating down
On scratched oak floors anticipating the sounds,
Of the words to be spoken and pentagrams drawn
In the black hope of inciting a terrible dawn!
Here the ghouls all read the Book of the Law
And call the basement below “the Hungry Black Maw” and
Scamper on down engulfed by the sound of the
Steps below creaking, in tremors they’re bound!
As below the cob webs of many a year are
Imagined to them the apex of fear! In the dark
Below, in all superb drear, the ghouls surround
In a worshiping pose, a sight so queer in tranquil repose!
The skeletal remains of the man of the house, now quiet
And still but with a lesson espoused! For the man in shambles
In the darkness below had died as he lived
And bitterly so!