Blue-veined cream unscrolls before the twitching ink,
subtle curves and jagged patterns.
Lines trace history from side to side,
relentless, every way but forward.
Underground, there is a rumble
Rocks shifting as the world sleeps.
With pen on paper trace what could be words.
They can read between the lines, they with eyes to read.

Heart and soul submersed in city;
Home is driven deep in ancient glass.
Coffee-cup canary in a coalmine deep as death
Sing signals on your wires.
Jitter, catching, scratching,
dip your pen in poison laced with ink.
Mechanical Cassandra
Reading of the rocking, roiling earth.

O, seismometer, which of these foretells our doom?
Your hand adjusts the scales.
Write the spikes.
Which of us will wake the sleeping dragon?