Flying over twisted concrete Drifting through the night's blue mist Standing by the gates of midnight Rainswept streets that hold death's kiss Torn from dreams, this barren landscape Mutant saviors roam the night Flesh and blood and energy Plagued with guilt, minds numbed with fright The Night Circus has come to town They want your life and soul The Night Circus, nowhere to hide They want to devour you whole Old bad dreams are new bad reality Old bad dreams are new bad reality I have wandered here while dreaming Feeling changed when I awoke Flaming sunsets, barren midnights Drifting through the blacklight smoke Dead nights carry a strange freedom Awe inspiring, fill the soul Search the night for Eldorado Find instead a gaping hole The Night Circus has come to town They want your life and soul The Night Circus, nowhere to hide They want to devour you whole They're going to devour you whole G.S., 8/12/80

Time goes on Great cities fall Decay falls over all The world a shade of gray The transients now hold sway "Traveling through dark dimensions Racing through the timeless night Slowing down to one world only City is within my sight....." Time is gone Great cities rust Tall towers thick with dust The weeds have overgrown Now anywhere is home "City is a barren wasteland Echoing with empty halls No one waits for my arrival Nothing seems alive at all....." The curtain crumbled in her hand as she pulled it aside. Gray light shot in through the broken panes. Down at the end of the empty street stood a man in black. Their eyes met. She ran. Through endless corridors of murky gray..... Sound began to reach her ears..... She was approaching the center of the tower. Open doors filled with leering faceless hoards beckoned her to join the fun..... The screams got closer..... The corridor ended, followed by the floor. She stopped at the edge and looked four floors down At the swirling mass of filth encrusted humanity that remained. They crawled on each other like crabs in a bucket. But they sought no escape. They liked it here. She made her way to the remains of the staircase, Which hung in crooked tatters from the edge of the floor. In many places, no stairs remained; In other places, the stairs were blocked off by walls of garbage, Packed so tight against the ceiling that they had to be crawled under. At last she reached the lobby. She stepped over two transients screwing on the floor in front of the staircase and edged her way around the rest of them. The screams down here were deafening. Unable to stand them, She ran for the lobby doors, Tripping over a transient who had been cut to death with a razor. She stared into his passive, lifeless eyes. Realizing she was acting foolishly, she got up And walked safely into the stale night air. She was safe. Time is gone Great cities rust Tall towers thick with dust And to this deadly hive A watcher now arrives His reasons unknown. A Watcher. Born alone. She meets him, they walk together... She asks him where he came from... Turns his head and smiles (but briefly)... Says, "Somewhere out on the dawn". And they walked far into the night. She showed him the abandoned theater, Where once great plays were performed, And music rang out into the waiting ears of the audience. They entered. Garbage and debris filled the stage Where once watchers spoke to their kind And all the statements of current condition And all the truth left in human relations What emotion was left at the hour of the fall Lay in the dust of the abandoned hall. "Ain't it neat?", she asked him. He held her, and sensing just what it was she liked, He threw her to the floor. They made lust on the empty stage Their cries like the music, so long ago. "Take me with you", she sighed to him gently. "Take me somewhere where I can belong. I don't know what I'm doing here, really. Somehow even reality's wrong." He looked down at her and chose to feel something..... Things inside...dead for thousands of years. He looked longer and saw she was crying So he held her head and wiped off her tears. "You've got to see the place I'm staying in. If you could see it then you'd know why I cry. You've got to take me out, get me away! If I stay there too long, I'm going to die." And so he told her that he would take her She wouldn't know that it could never come true He hadn't let her know just what he was And he still wasn't sure what he had come there to do. They slowly walked towards the doors Which had been broken so long ago When from somewhere a gang appeared And blocked the way in grim tableau. Gang: "What we got here?" "Don't know. Looks like fun." "Hey, what you doin' round here anyway?" "We're gonna poke out your eyes and skullfuck you, bitch!" "No, no, man. She gotta see what we do to him first!" The Watcher spoke. "Do yourselves a favor. Leave." The gang laughed and advanced on the couple. She wanted to run, but he waited, and watched. Just a few of his thoughts in a few of their minds And they turned on each other, killing just their own kind. Switchblades, hammers and hacksaws Metal met flesh and bare bone. He turned from the gore, which was part of his job So long ago he had learned not to feel. She fell on the floor and laughed at the mob. So long ago he'd learned nothing was real. "What makes you laugh?" he wondered aloud. She rolled in the blood that flooded the aisle. "Cocksuckers!" she howled, "It serves them right!" Her laughter gave way to a jubilant smile. He saw what she was and couldn't help but feel sorry; Her lunatic world had left its mark. Children raised in disease cannot help but be sickly; Children raised in the night learn to live in the dark. Suddenly, a voice in his head cried "THE CITY MUST DIE!" (His orders, coming through at last.) A thousand times the voice had screamed A thousand cities burned to ash. "LET NOTHING LIVE THAT WALKS ERECT. RAZE ALL THE TOWERS TO THE GROUND. BE CAREFUL NOT TO LEAVE A TRACE. THIS TIME MAKE SURE THAT NOTHING'S FOUND." "Listen to me", he said to her, "I've just discovered why I'm here." She looked up from the brains and blood and suddenly she tasted fear. Something about him had changed. She looked into his eyes and saw the end of everything she'd ever known. He turned from her and walked out into the night. She didn't follow. She heard explosions, screams, sounds unlike anything she'd ever heard. Years without fear caught up to her and she lived them all in one night. When the first rays of light appeared through the broken doors, She cautiously exited the theater. Everything was gone. No buildings. No people. Barren ground stretched onward into the horizon. The Watcher appeared behind her. "I thought I owed you an explanation", he said. "I'm a Watcher; I'm part of you. I'm not different. I'm in everything you do. Your own people called me. I'm their death wish personified. I'm also your fear; and these must be gratified. I'm the witness to every society's fall; I must see all the things that revolt and appall. Doomed to wander, always out on call; For I inhabit the vision of all. Nothing hides from me, nothing is safe Though you have your illusion of privacy. All wishes are granted by yourselves, not by fate; You know all there is, but you don't choose to see." "Elsewhere on this planet are inhabited places. Walk east until you find a town Where you can wear some other faces; It's there that you can settle down. Your life is forever your decision. Goodbye." She reached out to touch him but found the air instead. She and the theater stood alone. The Watcher was gone. And the Watcher still waits Somewhere out on the dawn A ubiquitous, timeless, drifting pawn Still watching those who refuse to see That their actions reveal their destinies. To the lone surveyors of distant sights To the wandering transients, out on the night To the lost and the fallen Those deceased and unknown To those who serve neither the black or white thrones To the killers repentant, denied of release To those born out of time Denied of the feast The Game will continue Forever and on The Watcher still waits Somewhere out on the dawn. G.S., '81-'83

As the misty curtains of sleep dissolve And yield to some autumnal morning, The dreams that passed before Will stay with you as a kind of warning. The remembrance of eternal nights of emptiness Now haunts your days The feel of death is in your soul It cannot leave It will always stay. For those who've glimpsed some other world Through dreams or visions or genocide There still remains a lifetime's wait Before the last and final ride. G.S., '81