Weathered concrete thrones
mark where men fell as they charged the plains,
sewing the soil with their bloody natron.
Desiccation is all the corn husk litters that followed the push
bore up from amongst the profusion of body bags
the cicadas left as they rose from where they had lain prone,
and rallied against the advancing Imperious Guard
to carry the day.
L’Homme Arme’—
he should have been feared.
Your eyes draw in the deepest spectrums;
indigo, violet,
swirling them in bowls of emerald,
jade and lapis lazuli,
exalting the ochres and carnelians
that remain to birth the rising sun.
So with most vibrant kiss the sun awakens me,
and all day I swim in those fluorite pools
until my goddess returns the evening colors to the world
to keep in trust within those eyes
dawn's fire throughout the night.
Deafened ears could not be augured out,
But gentle strokes that soothed a weathered cheek
And set the north wind in the hair,
Now gouged the eyes of wetted clay
With hands best suited for
Concealing crow’s feet on a courtly Fool.
Unmasked, a single gesture’s resignation
Drew the eyelids closed before the firing
For fear a single rutted fingerprint remain,
And trembling, laid two souls eternally to rest
Rather than suffer facing countenance unworthy
Of the maestro.
Take my body.
Flay me.
Rip my limbs from socket joints
long ossified by time.
You broke me on a whim
for sake of raising others
at the table of my corpse,
or roasting sacrifices to your gods
who've deafened to your feeble prayers.
I still defy you.
You have failed in your charge
For now my skin is tinder.
Pile my quarters high
and with my members
set the pyre alight.
Damned and butchered as you left me
still my spirit rises in the night,
a beacon to the living
that no pneuma can be taken,
grasped,
or immolated by mere men.
For I am not the body but the fire.
Leave me where you found me
and the scavengers consume my flame,
or torch and watch me slip through fingers,
burning those who hurl a final fist.
I am becoming and eternal.
Your have delivered me with your hate.
I am the light.
so drink of it deep.
That nectar of porphyry chrysalis
Shed for the love of the air.
Struck from your forewing pair; glorious twins
Birthed of Leto and swansong,
Awaiting
Eos to evaporate
Crepen dream flotsam. The boon Epimetheus gave
The Dioskouri —
One lost to Lethe’s lead currents—
Passed through the shade veil, but whispering memories.
Draw out the secrets your forbearers keep for you!
Then will your filigreed wings be put down
The terra brigantines sail the sky.
Masted without shrouds—mere skeleton ships
With living crews still scrubbing the underdeck marble planking,
Boiling away in the hold, hands flayed on the rigging,
Never knowing whether they are at sea,
Foundered on shoals,
Found safe harbor.
Floundering in their humid breaths of stale air
As Zephyrus fills out the sailcloth of time.
There is a store where marionettes dance
Though they hang from the ceiling by fingerless hooks.
Tin cars bustle by on the tarmac of paint
On tables to nowheres and allwheres at once.
Piles of maps detail who-knowsest? places—
If you listen for waves then you might see ships sailing.
Carnival posters crammed with clowns whose best joke
Is to turn into ink when you call to your parents.
In a desert city, he alone has found the water.
He alone has drunk from the fountain of eternal life,
Has discovered the hidden monument
Buried at the bottom of the glass,
And the glowing sunset in the summer raincloud at the tip of his cigarette.
He drinks it in; bathes himself in its sacred waters and is washed clean,
Never suffering for thirst on the stony doorstep
Of a ragged, parched town.
Unseen.
Truth is a lie of the waking hours.
Our senses crave the incense of desire;
The waft from the censer’s neurotic pendulations,
Fanning the smolders of obscuratum,
As if hypnotic enchantment by the golden sphere
That dangles from velveteened fingertips by a glistered chain
Is a pensive act of transfiguration.
From first grey daylight to the rising sun are the milling hours.
The traction animals tread the sidewalks of the gin gang city,
Grinding yesterday’s grain into flour for day-old bread.
But what matter? Yesterday, tomorrow— a turn of the stone;
The measure of time is the dripping of sweat
In glazed eyes watching footstep after footstep
Grind our coffee between the soles of our shoes
On the sidewalk grit.
And another yesterday is tomorrow,
And another tomorrow is yesterday
And a single drop of sweat puts us to bed.
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