For Richard Ramirez Edward Galluccio, Year 12 IProwler, prowler, soft in stride, Is it the same that drives the shark Cloaked in midnight’s silky hide, To stalk the shallows after dark? Crowned by moonlight’s solemn glow, And echoes in each lupine howl? What great baton conducts you so? And in each dripping bestial jowl? Were you born the same as I? And does the roaring outback blaze, Did you struggle? Did you cry? That sweeps across the bushland maze, Did you crawl and bawl and shout And laps with greed at acid skies, Before those crooked teeth did sprout? Burn as well in tortured eyes? Before that lonely child was starved, Do you call from wind-swept shores And on his corpse a star then carved, Where with white nails the ocean claws? And bones rose from each sunken cheek In that heaving seething hiss? Like fossils from a weathered peak In the deafening growl of that abyss? Do you hear it, on the breeze? Did it always lie beneath? The whirring blades above the trees? That reptile with its crooked teeth? The guns that beat their frantic drum In the thick and gloomy murk, In rhythm with the jungle’s hum? Did that creature always lurk? A drunken snarl, a sickening thud And does it wait within us all? A choking sob, the sting of blood Locked in epic aimless brawl Do they whisper in your ear? Until at last some final scream Those notes of terror, notes of fear? Pierces through the stubborn dream Is that what draws you down each street? That far-off call? That distant beat? What hand pulls the strings that made You pull the trigger, sink the blade? “And does it wait within us al l? Locked in epic aimless brawl” Edward Gallucio