Read Poem: City Night by Fiona Sullivan

It’s a truck, it’s big
It goes through the night down the silent city street
empty office buildings, littered gutters

The driver sits upfront
semiconscious, remote
seemingly completely unaware of
Of the howling horrors he tows
Great cries of where, when, how
No one knows.
‘I’ll get you, seduce you, ravage you’,
they howl and jeer
And laugh, bawdily, naughtily, madly, dangerously
loud and untrammelled in their nightmare ride through

the sleeping city.
They hang over the sides and through the cracks
yell at the normal, opening their nightmares to slip inside
and grow.
Their cries. The cries from that truck
seep into memory and are crystallised
in fear.
The leering, jeering truck of other.
Cargo from hell,
which few have heard, many not listened
and less mentioned.

Once you’ve heard that truck, with its silent driver
Once you’ve heard the hungry, grasping cries
calling for your soul to join the dammed
You never forget the human
voices. Almost human. Almost
words.

Some say it’s cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse.
but it sounds like a day out
from Hell.