There's a large circle of dark prayer
on the west wall of the Vampire Cafe

This godless hoop
holding a round canvas hostage
while demon heads spin
in their own sweet hell
of black and silver

They swim within a whirling
sliced globe of elegant anger
reptilian appendages
curled into tails and wings
crushed within the fold
of layered, lifely heat

Smoldered down to blue embers
barely alive
hardly dead

There is life after art
where a dark heart beats
nightmares into dreams