City of Cruelty: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 5)

By Simon Pole

What if fallen angels got a second chance?

In The Saga of Terminal City they do, freed from prison to walk the earth, doing good -- if they can.

When a new Satan arises, the Poor Shepherds and their allies must race to prevent his reign. Will mourning or celebration be in store? Find out in City of Cruelty (No. 5).

30 chapters, 2400 lines of poetry, all written in modern epic verse.

Synopsis

When avatars of evil, of acts willed,
and those which of gene and earthquake arise,
are, by noxious third party, union-bound,
(who was with stables of creeping ink ringed)
it will, in quarters of the proud city,
a backlash pique. Arise there living stars,
who medicinal dances make, inmates
of prisons, both mad and in pre-change states,
who will to wife all souls take, sovereignly;
also, on that high day, the blighted heir,
and those who crimes conceal will be washed clean,
as from all points heroes and angels glide,
while walk loose trees, sentient slimes and chaps.
But in cavities deep, a mewling dunce,
from split skull in charged cloud makes a bit stew
(wove cords networked out), massaging the day,
as over him forces fight, virtually.
The cousin of man, shaved ape, convert will
to review, as belly-born, the new Beast
his roll takes, and waits, as civic regimes
an end find, before their new flowers plant
(though other friends of heinous acts foes seek,
and find, in ex-angel Robert Hunger).

Bio

His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Vancouver, British Columbia. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Pole
• Release date: Jan 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310460760

Simon Pole

His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Kingsville, Ontario. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

Book preview

City of Cruelty

an epic verse novel

Simon Pole

The Saga of Terminal City

No. 5

Smashwords Edition

www.simonpole.ca

Copyright © 2014 Simon Pole

All Rights Reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Simon Pole.

Original Cover Photo by Benjamin Watson

Used Under License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

About the Author

Chapter 1

The Swigger an abundant bottle held,

at all times, ones camouflaged under arm,

or in cairns that he heaped on dirty streets

of the city. In the bottle fizzed hootch,

of matchless concoction, purple-coloured,

like the sap of some celestial weed

that did on obtuse planets grow, rankly,

and was by comet, perhaps, returned here.

That day he met a friend, The Burrower,

old tramp, of battered hat, who, growing tired,

of the round of flophouse and mission floor,

a tunneled pad made underground, with tools,

and nail extensions soldered to his hands

(that like an eager badger made him look),

and in the bank of excavated dirt

eluded the sun for twilight’s comfort.

Come evening as midges, in profusion,

returned to their roosts of dung and garbage

that were like prizes across curbs dispersed,

the cronies shared, with uproarous tippling,

a jug of the most hoary festered wine.

From the ants had he wrested it, below,

when his warren snaked to regions unplumbed,

ajoint the infernal core, and its heat.

Their feeble, stick-like limbs he defeated,

and as plunder took the cup, though warnings,

both signed, and in death words breathed, advised him:

that blackmalt juice forbidden is to men.

To one who found his drink on hardware shelves,

such a ban risible was and flouted;

and so the warding seal torn away was,

and, with many an oath and much glee,

the black dregs of booze to the lees drained were.

To and fro they pressed the contraband brew

with canniness piqued by sleeping in streets,

and effortless hid it as police passed,

until, with bulging eyeballs, and stomachs,

distended like the most bloated wineskin,

on the stones they lay in heaped agony.

Then passing was also on the slick steps,

with feet gamboling like the freshest colt

(though aged of head and limb was he, gray-furred),

a man who the keenest of eyes possessed.

The Collector was he self-styled, and he scoured,

with relentless, but appraising glances,

all the detritus that a city burps,

and that is like seaweed caught in corners.

Prostrated tramps he accosts in this way.

"Say there recliners upon the pavements,

who in brutish fibers are clothed withal,

and in self-spitall are decked all over.

Understand I you incommoded are,

with demons of brain-boozed conjuration

(who no doubt your privates prick achingly),

and consent may be absent. Nonetheless,

I, who the connoisseur’s heartlessness has,

augustly, amongst your beaten bladders,

exchange propose in the market manner.

I these golden-flecked bills, a strange specie,

acid etched by no known country, and inked

with resemblance to crazed calligraphies

(perhaps those by madmen scrawled in Bedlam)

and idols of mismatched statesmen promote,

do place before your epileptic feet."

As on a bed that is with thistle stuffed,

instead of down or compliant feather,

so did the tramps, like confounded actors,

who in a bare play lose what script there is,

and the boards fall upon in parody,

in extremis, of the Royal Nonesuch,

no rest find as jug-induced cramps pinched them.

The jar they cursed, and the receding sun,

that starred their eyes, and with it took from them

the alarm or hand up strollers might give,

and left The Collector’s regard. He said:

"Yes, unbutton the beast that tortures you,

the raging kick inside your flimsy skulls,

and I, with beaker ready, scoop it up."

Then they saw, watching angels, the bone burst,

and out spring, in tar-smeared birth, the black foal,

but nothing did as it was squired away.

Chapter 2

Trolley wheels rattled like chugging railroads,

the kind that, in town or fen, the mild sleep

of men or beast disturbs in hard clatter.

A cart, that was with pill boxes laden,

and directed, with professional thrust,

down snake corridors, past golden bricks,

and diamond-dust doors, on pearl-speckled tiles,

and all else that divine splendour denotes.

In The Pyramid of Angelic Hosts

did he the heaven-scale way wind, this man,

or women, or both, who in dress and pants,

and blouse and shirt, and tie and knotted scarf,

to a guarded barrier his cart pushed,

at whose bar, in terrible armour bound,

and with star-forged weapons armed (though sheathed dark),

two Cherubim stood and challenged him fast.

I am the Eastern Star, the Doctor said,

"he that in man’s early infancy rose

with dawn, and by evening had set steeply.

Those days, when in hill-top tells, or ravines,

that were