I

Appeasements on the rim of the caldera…

measured footsteps deliberated

on plasma consecrated clotted ground.

The priests’ eyes of remoteness,

like clear stones look past the temporal field

piercing malfeasance with dismissive gestures

while incantations gutter outward

amid the amassing immolations.

The obsidian blade assures

no lasting atonement,

cycles accumulate new trespasses,

generate new hunger in the gods,

perpetuating unending crucifixions

of the id.

The smoke of the sacrifice purpling

at the edge of the known

deflects bleakly into

the sonic dark atmosphere.

II

All deeds have fallen to dust,-

dead spores suspended

in emoted volitions.

Of all that was written,

nothing will remain,

the tongues of sedition

stamped down amid

the praises of the overseers,

leave only the silence stones.

The creatures of Prometheus disperse,

are covered in iridium, are laid down

in the black Jurassic mat.

Those newly born into twilight

succumb silently on the charnel ground.

III

Lives, small-minded,

lived in corners of deceit,

conceived and regulated

in the rat run,- polarized,

strung out, bent under laws

that bind us to earth,

rush on adrenalated

in the wreck of days.

Where-to these enduring

expectant lives, whose fears

articulate lies of preservation,

who fester day-long

in inescapable self-deception

and loss of faith, ultimately wresting

promise into lost days?

What-for?

IV

Of artifice nothing will remain:

the Iron Pillar of Chandra,

the temple dance, the fire altar,

pattern of the jola drum…

these lie buried in labyrinths of untraceable

and irretrievable time.

Gone the full ardour of life

expressed in subtle craft

and overt contrivance;

invention spun into a myriad arts lost:

masters of fire, shapers of metal,

those who augured from charred bits of bone,

they who grappled eagles in their middens,

she that weaves the pattern

of earth and sky into fabric, removed.

From their dust their art shall not be revived.

Lured across crimson seas, led over yellow sands

intoxicated by visions, those drawn in

dreaming the many temptations

proffered in the siren’s call,

neither do they return;

the earthen tracks of their caravans

close like the wake of a wave

in a sea of oblivion.

V

Cursed objects unearthed

drive the fever of the mind,

roving over subterranean rhythms,

delving in dark streams rushing below,

ignorant of stars,-

ignorant of the flowering stone.

VI

Underlying everything, buried in every cell:

DEATH APPARATUS…

  Power, arrogance, authority over men

   legitimized by the doctrinal ravings

of lunatics: deceits leading to

pollutions of the mind,

corruption of wills,

contaminations of the body,

oaths of allegiance coerced,

professions of faith coerced

on the frontiers of hysteria;

suspicion and distrust precipitating

the slow slide into madness.

Summoners of Primordial Shadow,

lurk in the Doorway of Syndromes,

robed in the Dark Pathology

of Endocrine Disruptors.

   Carrying the star of the false prophet, they

  incur the Fate of Desecrators upon us all.

They haunt the Shadow of God,

which is DEATH.

They dwell in the ECSTACY

of the all-consuming fire,

which has become my abode,

where I stumble headlong

onto descending paths

to fall in among the dead,

the weight of the soul held

against the weight of a feather;

there falling in among

things past and things lost,

to lay like a stone

with angelic music streaming in my head.

(Aniridia Redux)