After the Battle

 Sardonic laughter from the lips

Of the great flatterer

Brings acidic tears to the gaunt cheeks

Of the raven-clad widow.

She stands on the ledge of the steeple

As the breath of the dark angel

Compels her to dive into the abyss below.

 

A maiden in her porcelain gown flees the chapel at midnight,

Soaked in a pestilent rain

As the calls of the plague-stricken owls

Reveal half-truths between the hacking coughs

Of thunder and the cries of fallen soldiers,

Lost in the fields of mud, calling for their beloveds.

 

Saturn’s hand pushes corpses, dead and alive,

Through the river of time

As the poet sits on a smoldering stump,

Stroking his lyre,

Reciting verses to the scene that lay before him.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

This was another horror film inspired attempt to be a bit more bold with my word choice and imagery.  

Saul

The pounding drums of war through righteous slaughter beat

With raining fire decry Amalekite defeat.

Iron-clad, the Lord’s men march’d under Martian sky,

And shortly left the field where gentile masses lie.

 

The burnt and violated flesh of innocents

Gave smoke, censer’s gift for raging God’s appeasement,

And all that remain’d: Foe’s much broken king and sheep

For Yahweh’s troops let not woman nor child escape.

 

Upon triumphant return, though, wrath from the prophet’s mouth

To Saul befell for leaving life, in an order doubt.

This mercy made the faithful man be seen as flawed

And torn like cloth from favor with a vengeful God.

 

Thus, high on Mount Gilboa, the enemy force

Like flame smote those being refused divine recourse,

And Saul was forsaken by his furious Lord

To watch his sons be slain and fall upon his sword.

 

And following mighty Philistine victory

A new king comes to end merciful heresy

And lead the chosen people to a violent summit:

A lyre-stroking, slim, murderous, shepherd-puppet.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

This poem, an experiment with metered verse, depicts the story of Saul, who lost favor with God after refusing to murder a bunch of people. For revenge, God had Saul deposed and put David in change. This poem was inspired heavily by poems like "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron. I'm neither religious nor a theologian, so take this poem and explanation with a grain of salt.

Prosperity

 Boney, cobblestone streets, slick from the acid rain,

Sit lined by carnal skyscrapers reaching high

Into the sulfurous clouds, impenetrable by the sun’s strongest rays.

 

The scent of cheap cologne comes from the feasting maggots,

Their gaudy, silken exteriors bursting from indulgence,

And the rancid stench of the flesh, their food,

Overwhelm the tower looking down on the grim city.

 

These sickly worms, who dream of becoming butterflies,

Rule over this land where all beauty is doomed.

And, with distorted eyes, they see the exhausted greys and browns

As glistening silver and gold in the absence of true brilliance.

 

Through the billows of smoke coming from factories

Burning the last bits of the emerald forest that once surrounded,

Never to be regrown on the spoiled, salted soil,

A massive, blood-stained dollar bill waves in the toxic air

Above the morbid capital where vultures and rats

Fight over the heaps of carrion they so crave.

 

More, more, they want more. They need it,

As they lure innocent pilgrims through the darkness

With promises of fame and riches,

And wait patiently on their thrones for their sanguine estates

To grow at the expense of these poor fools.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

As I wrote this, I was thinking about the suffering that is caused by greedy businesses and corrupt politicians. I tried to imagine how that would look if it were embodied by a physical city.

Lillith

 Her breasts bore not her silken lingerie,

Now scattered about the floor,

But the sanguine release of her lover,

 

Whom she would feel in the coming moments,

With one final gasp,

Softening inside of her.

 

Like the penetration

Of the lion’s tooth into the lamb,

She drove that dagger into his heart

While she rode him in her room, glowing and smelling of candles,

Dying their sheets a deep, fervent crimson.

 

An act of romance, an act of love

An impulse at the climax,

She couldn’t be controlled.

Phallus and seed

Could never sate the emotional lust of passion

Burning in her soul

 

As painting herself with the life from his chest could.

Riding, stroking, bucking, being penetrated,

Feeling the sweat fall with each raging thrust,

The vulnerability of his calloused hand around her throat

Could never bring him close enough for her.

 

And so, with an orgasmic battle cry

She committed the deed,

And rolled onto her back,

Rubbing the blood into her porcelain thighs

And stroking herself with her shaking hands,

Never to feel this intense pleasure again.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

Up until this point, the imagery in my poems had been a bit mundane. However, as I was living off of my small savings in Cuenca in October of 2017, I spent a lot of time watching horror movies. That helped me to get more graphic with my imagery, but I feel that in a lot of ways, I overshot things at times.