In the crowd of men 

Monsters walking in the crowd of men
nobody notices
a gargoyle
        with granite skin and grotesque fangs
drops a twenty into a beggar's cup
a demon
        skin aflame,
asphalt bubbling in his footsteps
stops to listen to a busker play saxophone
swaying and bopping to the beat.

The monsters are the men.

I dream of pulsating machine guns
bullets small smooth perfect deadly
of dynamite
And walk in the crowd of men.

             -for Seung-Hui Cho

by Geoffrey Landis

Email: geoffrey.landis@sff.net