STD

To that castle far from shore 
The blessed shall set sail nevermore. 
There dwell denizens—a scant few 
With faces purple-masked and skin of shadowed hue. 
Green waters of a wretched, lonesome sea 
Surround the diseased of that colony. 
Gather they to pray silently 
To the sallow waves: 
Tides of their loathsome graves. 
Black lips, red iris; choked, poison veins 
Lost thoughts circling in fetid brains. 
Red, festering on sleek, leaking skin, 
Reminders of lecherous sin. 
Touched by the canker of shattering pain, 
Never to see the light of day again, 
And in that shrine of abandoned stone, 
Plague sits on a coal-black throne. 
Watery epitaphs where each devil laughs, 
Fiery tingles there from simple air 
In that castle of despair. 
And with a tortured moan 
A man dies alone. 
And out to sea 
They bear the body, 
One less hopeless denizen 
In that kingdom of restless men.