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 under oak beams.
On evenings like this hungry he swoops
in eyed chance and wings collapsed
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.