[LXXXVIII]
Curse the sun, you lonely king
of ash, of husks & of ruin. Howl
at the encroaching flood
as your tongue chokes on thorns.
Greying host. Poison nectar.
Perfumed blood will flow
from your withered hands.
The pillars of flame that licked
at your aching body are buried
in the dirt, the iron which held you
to the earth is broken into shards
of bright silver light.
No drought is endless. No horizon
is dark for all time. Walk freely
through crimson waters, and leave
hope in the furrowed arms of night.
[LXXXII]
A new American blasphemy
a god with no gun
who howls from his graveyard
with a shaking voice
that makes all your old nightmares
obsolete. There’s a cruel wind
& bombs falling from earth to sky.
The bodies of children washed ashore.
A prophet reaches out
his knife to the congregation
& they claw at their eyes in worship.
Cain tears out his mother’s throat
with his teeth.
The sun dies,
a broken colossus. A kingdom of sour blood
& venom swirling in the sky.
Somewhere above the mountains,
a trumpet plays,
sounding like a museum of ghosts.
[LXV]
All glory to the broken machines
the massive angels
beaming with light.
Shrieking restlessness.
The ancient pull
of the sea. A celestial
cacophony
of Armageddon
needles forward,
awash in savage grace.
If we are anything,
we are black dogs
barking, crawling
blindly towards
our own extinction.
A kamikaze
cadence, gnawing
at the dust
in God's hands.
[LXXXVII]
The broken god of man
towers above us in a filthy
heaven. hands down
monuments to splinters,
to ruins. a heavy crown
of desire. robes black as
a child’s dreams buried
in the earth.
& kneeling in light, we sing
for the flowers & the sadness,
for the forgotten & the heavy
of heart. for the sorrow that stirs
in us the half-belief that prayer
is not only the anticipation
of mourning to come. oh,
what joy! what stillness!
what blessed comfort
there is in the sky!
we weep from the pain of living
but glisten with light. we survive.
has the world ever been so brave?
[XCIII]
It was how you danced
that struck me. A flicker
of sunlight through leaves,
as if your body was pulled
between the lighthouse
& the stones. Withered,
wearied, you scorched
the earth. Sparks to embers,
to fires, & you burned
with fever as I sketched
your portrait in the dark
with a heavy key. I pulled
god down from the sky
& you shook with indifference.
The script torn in half.
The sun gone vacant.
We buried our fathers
joys & fell into the water.
Like a dirge, or a release.
These poems are deconstructions of previously existing texts. Namely, the lyrics to various albums that have made an impact on me. I take those lyrics & run them through software that lists every word in alphabetical order, thereby stripping away the original context of the work, and I use that word bank to create new poems. I constrict myself to using only the words that appeared in the original work, and only as many times as they appeared.
- Curse the sun, you lonely king (SUMAC – Love In Shadow)
- A new American blasphemy (ZAO – The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here)
- All glory to the broken machines (FULL OF HELL – Trumpeting Ecstasy)
- The broken god of man (THE BODY – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer)
- It was how you danced (ALTAR OF PLAGUES – Teethed Glory & Injury)