march 2020

                               (i)

...and so which is it to be

to yield to this chaos or defy it

not that it really, really matters

for whatever I choose

I will disintegrate cell-by-cell

until I attain the consciousness of wax

so please, render down these bones

and instead make candles from my fat

let me at least burn with my own private light

and warm the dead with my arrogance

let me push these shadows aside

so that I might find the path

that never was

the marvels that never were

a memory buried by superlatives

this invasive trick

of how prophesy left the world

infested with apes

an animal, like me, lost inside itself

turning into wax...

                                (ii)

...one night a dream leaked  from my ears

and I woke to find the pillows beside me

stained with thousands of disembodied mouths

the remnants of every voice I had ever heard

they wormed and whispered towards me

saying that only I and I alone

could give their pain some purpose

so I quickly dressed and left

only to find the rest of the house

festooned with the wings of dismembered angels

the smell of their rotting immortality was so repugnant

the universe around me choked with disgust

then, at the windows outside, I noticed

crowds upon crowds of all the faces I had ever known

their mouths missing

their eyes shedding

every shade and nuance of imagined love

fulfilment, fulfilment they yearned

but I could take no more

I left the house and never returned...

                       (iii)

...this glory, this magnificence

this garland of makeshift divinity

is what exactly

and who are these people

being chased by spirochetes

who rant and spit inspiration

and then launch themselves like crazed sopranos

off the edge of the world

what is it that calls to them

across these deserts

these dark, intuitive spaces

where parasites appear in the gloom

spinning alliterations

and turning fever into joy and joy back into fever

but, but this still does not explain glory

or this lust for magnificence

for what victory can truly conquer

the entirety of everything

starlight, for instance, has no such vanity

its incandescence just spins 

a unilateral presence

it is, however, the aging devotees of starshine

who sit longing for some signs of triumph...