Owl-Sound.
On nights like these when coal fires burn,
tainting with soot city\'s cold air,
I hear the owl from my easy chair
and imagine talons sheathed in thick fur.
Not thru\' countryside haunts he screams
but hunts now in crumbling walls
where once stood candelabra-lit halls
full of silk-clad dancers beneath oak beams.
On evenings like this hungry he swoops
eyeing a chance his wings collapse
plucks from old hearths mesmerized rats
as dust again settles in castle\'s half-rooms.
From neon\'s lit roadways an owl sounds
doom\'s omen for all ruined houses.