They come – the tattered,
the wretched, the battered –
To wait by the tracks in the station.

But the train’s not been here
in a number of years,
since sorrow became the only oblation.

With liquor and song
they forget how they long
for the days when their lives seemed so golden,

and oh how they miss,
as they reminisce,
the strength that used to embolden.

They’ve been here before
to knock at the door
of the station attendant’s headquarters,

to hear it be said,
“We don’t take the dead.
It bothers the rest of our boarders.”

Still here they sit,
sharing a hit
from a bottle of liquid sensation,

and as they fall
the wine hits the wall,
offered in tainted libation.

God’s not been allowed
to relieve the fouled
so He waits in the shadows in sorrow,

and He stands at the door
of the station whose floor
is littered with the dead of tomorrow.

They’ll always remain
among the self-slain
as they resist Him with blind dedication,

For Lucifer taunts,
the fallen he haunts,
in his Kingdom of black desolation.

©2007 Sharon Gerlach