The Blade
Center of the earth anyone?
Prepare for perpetual noise and darkness.
Grottos of fire, caverns of steam.
And heat enough to melt a mountain.
The blade will do its job.
It cuts through layers
of any substance that the earth
can put in its path.
But there’s people aboard.
The vehicle is narrow.
Madness moves with alacrity
through cramped quarters.
Some sights are unexpected:
tiny critters embedded in the mantle,
a mercury lake,
more prehistory than in ten thousand textbooks,
but mostly the vessel chisels its way
through mile after mile of solid nothingness.
No underground cities.
No sparkling gems.
Just whatever it takes to build a planet,
hold it together for ten billion years.
..
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dalhousie Review, Thin Air and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Qwerty, Chronogram and failbetter.