[Death and poetry go so well together, don't they? This also appeared in "Darkness, Darkness".]

Retribution in the Darkness

For whatever beast the pale light shines,
it creeps across my broken room,
where I lie, unmoving, stirless,
a lineless actor in a moral play.
Thin wisps of life drift past my lips
and dilute into the heavy air.
My limbs are numb, my thoughts a smear,
but somehow to my dying eyes
the beast's searchlight is very clear.
 

-- © 1989, W.A. Seaver.