Do you listen to the wind,
like I do, and notice that
it carries a thousand
groans of grief and agony,
a calling to the observant,
to the caring, to the few? –

(a deep, foreboding hiss,
that echoes thru the valleys and
penetrates the highest peaks;
that soars thru-out the nation,
and clings to dingy walls of
loathsome urban edifice,
condensing invisibly,
scraped away by dutiful squeegee.)

Do you listen to the desperate moan
that sends the tree into a quiver,
that signals the instincts of
struggling bird and beast
to stand still in a confused panic;
an unprecedented worry
that gnaws away at their scant kingdoms
and destroys their dreary dens?

Do you see, everywhere ‘round you,
the fiery vapor and crimson rain
that crisps up your flesh and
clogs up your brain - the specter of a
thousand pains – a million souls
drifted astray?
Can’t you feel
your skin flaking away
in hideous wafers, or
your sanity beginning to helplessly taper?

Do you listen to the wind,
like I do? The
serpentine message that slithers through
the constant, dreadful zephyr,
that haunts your dreams and
spoils your frivolous pleasure-schemes?

Are you deafened to every word
and every melody by
the loathsome wind, the sable
serpent, the hissing air,
the gruesome rain,
the million desperate creatures
screaming out in vain?

Do you listen to the wind,
like I do, and feel the ice hands
stroking your spine? Do you hear the
termagant nagging, the
endless, paranoid ranting,
that corrupts your mind and
makes you blind to
all that once was pleasant,
and all that once was kind?

Listen to the wind like I do,
I cannot stand alone to be plagued.

Listen, perhaps it will cease
once it alarms all the clueless,
all the spoilers, the loungers…

the thousands that are living,
though mentally deceased.

Listen to the warning in the wind.