If I Scream

Simon MacCulloch

If I scream it is only the heart’s aboriginal shriek

As it bubbles up red through the holes where the fangs have slid in

With the voice of the throat, in the words that the tongue cannot speak.

I am victim of what is inside, and so hardly unique

For we all carry savagery, intimate under the skin.

If I scream it is only the heart’s aboriginal shriek.

And the language of blood in its richly exorbitant leak

Tells the tale of the wallowing reptiles to which I am kin

With the voice of the throat, in the words that the tongue cannot speak.

The communion of prey with the predator, strong with the weak

Is a sex-mocking struggle of symbionts neither can win.

If I scream it is only the heart’s aboriginal shriek.

It’s the cold consummation that all must unconsciously seek

Expressing an impulse that’s older and purer than sin

With the voice of the throat, in the words that the tongue cannot speak.

On the night of the vampire the earth shall inherit the meek

And the long hungry life of the hunter and hunted begin.

If I scream it is only the heart’s aboriginal shriek

With the voice of the throat, in the words that the tongue cannot speak.