Three Points in Babylon

Three Places to Touch in Babylon

(An Incantatory Gothic Poem in the Manner of Poe)

In Babylon, O Babylon, beneath the crimson sky,

Where towers lean in weariness, where ash and silence lie,

I walked among the serpent streets, bewildered and alone,

And heard the whispers of the dead in mortar, dust, and bone.

They spoke of touches terrible, three doors the soul must own—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

I. The Shelter

Beneath the ziggurat I crept, where silence breathes like stone,

A hollow socket of the earth, a grave to call my own.

No refuge there, no comfort kind, no hearth against the cold,

But living walls that trembled low, with secrets never told.

I pressed my hand against the dark, and felt an answering tone—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

My shadow fled, it turned from me, it clung against the wall,

It muttered treason in its stance, it would not heed my call.

The Shelter seized my marrow deep, it branded me with dread,

It touched me with its ancient pulse, the heartbeat of the dead.

And in that throb I heard the doom that chilled me to the bone—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

II. The Surf

I staggered forth to river’s edge, where surf devoured the quay,

The water laughed in cruel delight, eternal in its play.

The faces of the drowned arose, their mouths a silent scream,

Their eyes rolled white in agony, as shadows of a dream.

They sank, they broke, they vanished fast, each wave a grinding stone—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

The tide struck warm against my cheek, a sanguine, copper spray,

Not water but a river red, that dragged the souls away.

It kissed me as a lover might, but with a blood-stained breath,

A tide of arteries and veins, the intimacy of death.

I reeled, I cried, I could not flee, for all the tide had shown—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

III. The Corpus

Through labyrinthine corridors I passed with faltering tread,

Where plaster peeled like human skin, where silence choked the dead.

A fissure narrow drew me in, entombed in tightening stone,

And there upon a broken slab reclined the Corpus lone.

Not statue, not a mortal frame, but both to flesh had grown—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

I touched its cheek, unbidden hand, a traitor to my will,

It answered not with marble cold, but warmth uncanny still.

The chest arose, it breathed at last, a sigh of ages torn,

The rattle of a thousand years exhaled in dreadful scorn.

The fissure sealed, the chamber shook, I found I was not known—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

The Corpus stirred, its lungs alive, it drank my trembling soul,

It exhaled ruin, drew me in, and rendered me not whole.

And in its gaze I felt the weight of cities yet to die,

The mark of Babylon’s vast hand inscribed upon the sky.

I knew the truth: the city lives, though all its bricks have flown—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

Coda

Thus branded by the touches three, the Shelter, Surf, and Corpse,

I bear the fingerprints of stone, of river, and of force.

Not places, but the city’s hands, they linger in my flesh,

They haunt the marrow of my bones, they coil, they enmesh.

And still I hear the echo low, a dirge in undertone—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.

O Babylon, dread Babylon! your hand is never done,

Your silence writes upon my soul, your shadow and I are one.

And when I wake from mortal breath, and yield my final groan—

It waits, it waits in Babylon.