The Eater of Worlds

 

 

that doom-laden theme, reek

of panache and charm –

insidious storied lords,

more numerous than the planets

they’d consume…

 

Don’t compare you to a slug, many-armed,

vicious teeth, bleeding effluent

as you eat and eat…

 

Here, in this street, on this beach,

behind an office – anywhere outside

the bubble of the written –

you are nothing but a horror.

 

Armageddon sells

but this is one world you can’t remake.

When you eat it,

you eat yourself.

 

You can’t see it coming

but you’re about to swallow your tail.

 

 

Michael Aiken

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in collage from: CSIRO CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) via Wikimedia Commons