King of the Sulphury Void

Reluctantly donning his dark hood, the Rector took up an oil lamp from beside the door, leading the unexpected visitors outside. One of the visitors sniffed the air as, together, they left the stone sanctuary behind them, stepping into an open space ahead; beyond that, lay a dark forest. To follow the path through the lea was mundane for the old rector even amid the tottering shadows of a cloudy moonlight and a flickering lantern. His guests followed apace as the priest contemplated somewhat to himself the extent to which prowess can supplement wisdom. Halting at a gate, the priest turned to face the guests behind him, stifling a gag as he caught a glimpse of their faces. He saw them exchange some understanding through nothing but eye contact. Witnessing such rapport with such an inhuman being afflicted the rector with uncanny and unease. The human agent looked to the priest and nodded. "Enter the cemetery here," said the Priest's bowed head, "do not tarry, the witching hour." As the two guests entered the passage into the tombs, a raven frozen black to a tree branch above cawed at the stars, marking the entrance of the unearthly beings. Then, except for the sound of the Rector's robes ruffling in the wind as he retreated quickly to his quarters, the dark field lay dead silent.

I think I might need to have a lie-down, not my normal self at all

Winter's root impinges
fogs the shrapnel in my hinges
Ferrous filings dim the millwork
filling to its fringes

The bray of abrasion
chronic, deranging -
A tinnital whittling
of pig-iron ore
hogged in a heap
on an earthen floor

Dustly shards detach the rasp
lungward bound on an annexed gasp
Rusting splinters drill my rind
galvanic as a chigger's hasp
a suffuse bind
The curdled sinter
freely sifts
into my sluice of mind.

two clicks per clack

he walks with a cane but he's able
a liar across the table
he's silent
when he's quiet
he's weaved another fable.

new salute

blouse pulled to the chill
distilled
a musty muslin Flag
and twill
an introspective drag
a lazing flash and brume of slag
atonic downward spirals of the ashes and the frag

au courant d' azincourt
a bodkin's brag,
a coursing stag
ricket knuckles nip a sodden lilting final fag.

the fevered ramblings of a syphilitic brain

That red-checked jacket was a staple of my figure
for two brisk autumns and a mild winter,
now it hangs idle but for stretching at the neck
two states away
provides warmth yet.

brownglass flarefoil

courting a high
a westward drive
a sunshade wards the setting eyes
charming a low
a southern grove
a sunset parry, the evening grows.

tintwind

steeped in evening
sepia air
amber tapestry
weaven hair
magistry
collapsing at the stair.

ecdysis

barely june and new york's trees
already moulting brittle leaves.

salin

he stumbled upon a salt stream
bubbling from a duct spring
into a gaping mouth sea.

the detachment stands to

I stepped into the day with hope, and now that it is evening my spirits have sunk with the drunken sun - hereafter I drink to the flush moon and the flagging tide.

That black sentence laid alone on the face of a page for more than a span as the man who typed it stared off, stared away, his fingers perched just above the grimy keys he poked when he wrote it - ten bleary lookouts, jaded by vigil, turning themselves yellow with slow smoke, weary, awaiting BMNT.

identifying marks

scrawled in cruor,

etched in hide,

riven up the ventral side.

earned in furor,
lost in fear,
balanced as the inner ear.

vaporous

whisper in and wade
this blurred and whirring fog,

lazing haze pervades
this slurred and purring bog.

blue liqueur

no ebbing star will tire my eyes,
nor surging lunar face,
no raw or rotting static skies;
my brow
unfurls
into space.

the furrowee

the gut-deep drainage ruts
in which
his neurons had been stuck
were stitched
and crosshatched by
the aggressive tread
the flocking heels,
he holds his head,
the motorized, queasing, rubber wheels,
his field is tilled and spread.

Joining the Hird

even as he skinned his first young deer, he held hope
for the day he'd wear a wolf's pelt into war.

even as he stained his chicken skin with char and tallow,
even as he smeared his dirty face with curing sapo.

even as he grinned and skinned his first grey wolf, he hoped
for the day he'd wear a bear's pelt into war.

several familiesworth

a lone cold bone amongst brush
slow to roast, slow to blush
the crunch and lingering still of a crush/

tonguing my cud
slobber and gravel, a cheek of mud
baldfaced boulders, mountainous molars
the scent of menstrual blood/

a winding height along the lake
a silent white meridian wake
stretching away at the polars.

afterlung.

In his stomach was an acidic lather as he peered through the trembling bay from the cold.  The far side of the mudded alley in which he stooped showcased the object of his greying curiosity.  Naked behind a bricked in, ripply window she treated her wounded skin, dabbing at splotches and sores with what he tried to imagine was a cool, wet rag.  The stone walls which kept the wretched voyeur from her were crumbling in the undying winter, weakening by the windgust.  He wavered with doubt and hunger in the brine fog as he considered the scene.  He coughed and choked then swallowed down the pulpy froth in his throat. Bloody mucous bubbled in his nasal cavity incessantly as he corroded slowly in the diffuse phosgene mist, and as purine tears culminated in the folds of his skin he shuffled away with a pule to seek quarter from the burning air.

chemical tenderizer

the nerves embrace relief
moments after they receive
their daily dose of deadening,
the marrow of the leaf.

the Inebriate Smith

handfuls of anvils for aches and spills,
rhythmically hammering advil pills,
bellows and coal
bourbon and skoal,
the loitering smoke a shill.

faithplant

just whose breath have I been stealing?
and how to explain this feeling...
it's the mind reeling
as the heart dissolves through the ceiling;
it's kneeling,
at last believing,
arriving only as the spirit of god is leaving.

braincloud

the voices of the day
hoist and force their way
unbid
into my sea
and say:
are we new thoughts or memory