Undercity

Lantern glare stains the catacombs,
edging circular round corners,
painting the hushed textures of mudstone
walls cutlassed with glyphs.
Beneath his whitening knuckles it
swings, haemorrhaging yellow glow,
like a leper's bell polished to a high shine.

Rudely disturbed,
the skulls cannot help but leer.
Stacked like tins
they weather
light's indelicate ministrations;
the probing golden fingers
up nostrils
into sockets flared as a bull's muzzle,
turning former cockpits of ambition
to lambent empty amphitheatres.
Jawless, they gift a mute audience
conferring with pickled tongues.