Beneath figures of steel where shadows creep,
lies a place long dead, where engines beat.
Where air lies thick with choking dust,
and no windows vent the stifling must.
Where echoes dance in vacant halls,
the hollow tunes on rusted walls.
A grave of iron, vast and deep,
Where ghosts of metal stir and weep.
There in the dark a figure shifts,
A shape that stirs, links that twist.
Its form is heavy, its breath is dust,
Limbs corroded and joints that rust.
And deep within, where gears entwine,
A heart is trapped in metal spine.
Body ground raw with every thrust,
Not by choice, but because it must.
Joints that scream with every turn,
run by grease, or oil, or things that burn.
A body bound by chains and steel,
a mind that isn’t able to feel.
A pulse that shudders, raw and thin,
Trapped in circuits, caged within.
It moves, it grinds, it aches, it drowns,
Yet cannot stop, yet can’t break down.
Its heart beats oil, thick and black,
The throbbing pipes, crick and crack.
And endlessly the pistons churn,
Skinning themselves with every turn.
Molten joints scream too burnt to heal,
Molested raw by grinding steel.
And still it moves, it turns and aches,
this writhing creature, a living grave.
When the grease runs dry,
the gears, they pierce –
fleshless machinery,
starved, so weak.
Spine that cracks,
hollow in the dark,
steel ribs collapse,
a torturous art.
And if not for the grinding sound,
Of rusted gears that pulse and pound,
The iron limbs would break apart,
Would spill their oil, a dying heart.
Devouring the core, gear by gear,
the machine pumps, tear by tear.
The echoes hum in fractured core,
Distant melodies, washed ashore.
The process goes on,
turn by turn,
waiting for the grease to burn.
As every day, a flood of seeping oil,
is forced into veins, for them to boil.
With every rotation and twirl of gear,
Rust flakes scatter like iron snow,
One convulsion, so many to go.
The screws they groan, a sickly mess,
while pipes exhaust their choking breath.
And ragged edges spit acid bile,
slick with grease reaking vile.
The pistons throb, a pulse of death,
ribs splinter – rythm of distress.
Metal grinds and bolts run deep,
twist like fractured limbs that weep.
The rust, it blooms like a rash on tin,
the cancerous rot lurks from within,
devouring decayed machine skin.
Bound by chains I will remain,
in this shell, is where I strain.
An iron prison, endless depth,
where I’m blind and deaf,
in which i must scream
but possess no breath.
Where I want to dream,
but am not taken by death.
The veins run cold – pipes of steel,
A prison of flesh that yearns to feel.
Circuits sing a tortured tune,
running on grease, they still consume.
A scream, but sound dissolves to ash,
A mouth that’s torn, a twisted gash.
A thousand eyes that cannot see,
A thousand thoughts that crave to be.
And so it turns, it grinds, it burns,
But freedom of mind is what it yearns.
As flesh and steel twist and break,
It keeps to dream yet cannot wake.
It longs for rest and endless sleep,
But still it churns, it aches, it weeps.
The rust consumes as oil runs dry,
In endless flow, it lives, it dies.
A mind trapped without a voice,
A heart that beats without a choice.
Iron cords that stretch too tight,
Nerves of wire shine cold and white.
Joints dislocate, then snap in place,
As fleshless fingers claw in space.
A maimed skull that never cracks,
as hollow sockets are staring back.
It’s bound in circuits and burned-in steel,
the gutted corpse that cannot heal.
And pistons churn and gears still spin,
Flayed and raw beneath the skin.
And so it turns in a restless plight,
Cursed to endure an endless night.
A mind is bound, a soul confined,
In a dead machine’s eternal grind.