_the stuff succubi are made off_

down the stairway,
half submerged
in eerily beautiful wafts
of layered mist,
half covered
by licking puddles
of a volatile fluid,
spookily alive
and faintly glowing
in the dark,
although of indeterminable colours,
lyeth the pale corpse of youth,
rotting in the godforsaken
dungeons of no return,
ruthlessly deposed off
by some roaming vagrant
called /age/.

wake it up if you dare
and become yet another prey
of time,
chased and hunted forever,
which is quite a while,
but for sure not less than 17 days
and a happy couple of unmarried hours,
illegitimate children of chronos,
the wind, and many a lost notion
from centuries long departed.

take up thy xenoscope and walk
along the shores of the nutmeg river
and beware of sudden clouds
wherein a fiendish universe
of purple spores
tries to get a free ride in your lungs
and even checks them out
for permanent residence,
which might as well finish you –
so don't you breathe in!

the river leads into the dusty swamps
o'halloran once discovered
but didn't even survive
until teatime.

at least you can still meet him
leaning at elson's rock
if you make it all the way through.

but he's no more like he used to be,
anyway...