Catacombs, Paris by Sandy Hiss

Over 180 miles of tunnels
traverse like snakes through dirt paths.
Some will lead to wine cellars, large murals,
mushroom farms or faces of death.

I am one of those faces
in this chaos of bone and memory,
just another skull in a crowd of six million
piled atop broken femurs and tibias.

It is always midnight cold here
in this garden of limestone;
the moon will cast a beacon of light
when it tires of a quiet, starless sky.

That is when the voices grow louder,
when the moaning becomes endless.
It is an opera of the dead
with no audience or standing ovation

Sandy Hiss writes lyrical poetry and short fiction in various genres such as horror, paranormal, and fantasy. Her fiction includes The Rosegiver and The Haunting of Meredith. She finds forests, gardens with stone statues, and old world architecture to be hauntingly beautiful.