The Ward

The Ward

Wings creep out from a central hall,
Cavernous miles of suffering walls.
Night dimmed lights
Leave shadows in a wake
Of strident bells and harrowing alarms.
Rivers trickle through channels of life;
Needles weep pain and sorrow.
Sighs filter through mechanical lungs;
Battered from a broken heart,
In the rock hard platform of a child's bed.

Cries of pain disturb the hall;
Echoes stalk marine mural walls.
Angels play with borrowed toys,
While specters whisper tales of horror
To haunted, suffering souls.
"Are you there?" comes a fragile voice,
Through pain, in an eternal, restless night.
Frigid halls feed stifling rooms,
In a world of carefully regulated seasons.
Childhood lived in hell's domain.

Fear stalks a vividly cheerful hall,
While death peruses childhood's artistic walls.
Mortal's audacity communes with Divine intervention,
To forge miracles in tiny bodies --
Which fight for a mere chance to live.
Frankensteinish scars speak
Of valiant warrior's courage,
And wage battles men will never know,
As a single tear drips
From the eye of a child.