The Ninth Circle - A Dream

Red brick houses lie in wait.
Waiting; watching; crouching;
Red brick walls, and frowning window frames, shake their green
Venetian blinds in silent malice.

Intricate latticed shades overhung
Like spirits of the dead, watching,
In ominous gloom, just
Waiting to come crushing down 
On you in your sleep. 

Lying, therefore, perfectly still, in 
wary, prayerful prostration, 
You seek escape, peering hard in the self obsessed blue-green dark,
from a slanting corner of your half-closed eye:

Escape from the endless
Climbing of peripheral steps up
Winding spiral stairs, whispering icy hallways
Guarding vengeful secrets, up, 
and straight up 
To a wide and jawless hell. 

No! don't look at the clouds below! Never down!
Never, into that crouching shaft, 
that like the Ninth Circle,
The tailbone of the world,
Is waiting to swallow your fall..