Darker Then Scarlet

Through the shutter  
of the camera lens  
he sees life expired  
a sea of faces  
trapped in a moment  
of agony  
forever contained    
in the four walls  
of a photograph  
cast in scattered  
black and white's  
there souls had already  
departed, there body's  
now removed from the crime scene  
lay down on autopsy tables  
ready for the meat wagon.  
   
Faces he had never met  
became his friends  
emerging from the  
shadows and fog  
of the developing fluid  
striped of colour  
cast in lifeless shadow  
a chalk drawing    
of the ultimate consequence.  
   
She left him months ago  
she says he was obsessed  
with his work    
putting victims before her needs  
he said "this is real police work  
how real cases are made"  
ironically she left him for his boss.  
   
Now these stark images    
has become more then friends  
they had become his life  
his only reason to function  
they died alone, screaming  
much like his soul he feels,  
each image had become  
engraved in his mind  
there was something missing  
something he was trying    
to find, a clue perhaps?  
a missing piece of the puzzle  
tormented souls cry for justice,    
a satisfaction  
they will never receive  
unless are hero intervenes.  
   
Returning to scene    
of the crime  
the next day,    
at the same time  
he can smell    
the miasma of death  
it greets him like a closed fist  
but there was something    
the forensic boys  
and the flatfeet missed,  
no matter the patten  
no matter the time  
the killer will always  
return to the scene of the crime.  
   
warm blood  
darker then Scarlett  
cascades from  
a newly open wound    
from somewhere    
that once had meaning and feeling  
twisting and turning  
the deep penetration of lint  
bursts his lung's with a    
deathly pop,  
vomiting a tsunami  
of crimson flood  
he falls to the floor  
a final reflex clicks    
the shutter button  
of the camera    
capturing his final moment.  
   
"She said his job would    
be the death of him"