And Still It Comes

like a downhill brakes-burned freight train
full of pig iron ingots, full of lead 
life-size statues of Richard Nixon,
like an avalanche of smoke and black fog 
lashed by bent pins, the broken-off tips
of switchblade knives, the dust of dried offal,
remorseless, it comes, faster when you turn your back, 
faster when you turn to face it, 
like a fine rain, then colder showers, 
then downpour to razor sleet, then egg-size hail,
fist-size, then jagged
laser, shrapnel hail
thudding and tearing like footsteps 
of drunk gods or fathers; it comes 
polite, loutish, assured, suave, 
breathing through its mouth 
(which is a hole eaten by a cave), 
it comes like an elephant annoyed, 
like a black mamba terrified, it slides 
down the valley, grease on grease, 
like fire eating birds’ nests,
like fire melting the fuzz
off a baby’s skull, still it comes: mute 
and gorging, never
to cease, insatiable, gorging
and mute.