The Devil and Cups of Sugar

I woke up
with dragon’s blood
dripping from my mouth,
remnants of the dream spaces that lingered
in which the mystics    
throughout time came together
in the forests forgotten
to argue over the best recipes
for old fashioned cocktails,
and to hold heated debates on which
witches’ brews were best to give soothing to
the dying and the dead
within us all.

And the tempests
that had so softly slept
in the clouds for years stirred and
now awoke coughing
with the ash and poison
of humanity,
winds and rains
growling anger and vengeance,
pouring down on us hungry,
and we then cursed the sky
because, of course,
our egos could always find
someone else to blame.

So as the rain started to whisper on the skin,
I was the Hanged Man
in your closet,
ever swinging and singing songs
that I didn’t remember
whilst still noticing a slight tightening
of my vocal chords,
scratches in the back of my throat
from demon claws
striving to crawl up my stomach lining,
trying to take over my head
which felt detached from my weary shoulders anyway,
and even so I could still hear my mind
floating down the river to the ocean,
which proved to be effective
in catching
the third eyes
of fallen angels
strip teasing in the streams outside my house,
crashing circus acts and white weddings,
watching humans and
their Hollywood heroes who beat their wives
and received generous tax breaks,
then to be running late to sidewalk rallies
protesting wall street religions,
sighing at stop signs
and popping pills like popcorn
on the way to after parties
and leaving heavy footprints
in the muddy snow on the streets of Detroit,
lighting cigarettes for strangers
and drinking wine with the neighbors
of serial killers
who hid their bodies
under the top soil of the lawns of strangers
instead of dropping by for cups of sugar.

Meanwhile,
I had given up on cancer cures
and your gods of mercy
since I had watched my brother
slowly slip into the afterlife,
my howls of pain and loss
ricocheting through the undergrowth,
splitting my soul in two
so that part of me could follow him
into the ethers and
the rest of my ghost wanders the world

trying to recall the pace of your heartbeat.

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