The Trapdoor
The trapdoor kicked away, leaving a vortex,
The damned in Adam flailing and undone,
The fires of hell redoubling in their fever,
The pit below, now brighter than the sun,
The whole divine array — a jutting picket,
A lonely tooth, a fire ravaged stump,
A revelation blacker than a mine shaft,
The wheel of time a broken, deformed clump,
Where is my future and my sure salvation?
Where is the holy child in brimming light?
My handhold now is nothing but a whisper,
Offered to the howling, storming night,
Paralysed in repeat condemnation,
Friendless and alone under the bridge,
Looking to the desert stars for comfort,
A stray coyote yowling on the ridge,
Wherefore the love that once bedecked my being?
The dancing glint from God’s own knowing eye,
The hope that ran from Christ’s triumphal being,
The host of heaven gliding through the sky,
The silent torment of the Christless midnight,
Is now the blanket I must clutch to me,
Comfortless and cold in winter bleakness,
Every blossom withered from the tree,
Wherefore the helping hands and guiding twinkles,
Set into my future by the fates?
My eyes exhausted, looking at the gallows,
Standing in relief at Sheol’s gates…
AD Lovkis, 27/06/25
adamdaniel 