mend

I heard the mountains move
I watched them as I crumbled

Father...—You speak as my head,
gently cradled, disappears beneath
the bandage You spun
The grave did I fear but
from ashes I rose
and from a death I once embraced, You
took me warmly to Your arms, and
as intransient ghost, I slipped through the soil into
a world beyond bone, beyond flesh and
in passing death I breathed
life into my lungs and this
skin became home to something beating—
zealous, throbbing soul.

miasma II

Putrid stench; smoke chokes the
air like demons—vile things
Death's flowers like blackened souls
Blood dried around the lip and
bodies tender from the bruises
My God! Alas, the damage your
children ravage, swollen bodies
crushed beneath the cruelty of man!
My soul— still, hard— sinks the depths of
despondency. Sorrow's sirens sing
out to me, pull at my hair, weave
obscenities as sharp eyes scour me
And death, romantic is the notion of
lover strangling lover 'til
breath and sigh subside to nothing
This soulless thief, would me, devour?
Great beast, if left alone, my
thoughts would thee caress with
painful disease
My God! Have we destroyed each other?
Unceasing, pungent labor, my torment is
mine own inflicted cross I carry

miasma

What of beauty? By it my
heart was broken, but for a
moment I breathed much easier—a
light; scattered shards on
endless seas where my
love was stolen from me
I held my fingers in between
dust pages on failing spines—
a ship of bones, its ribs a
sordid home. it bled through
the wood—stank of twisted knuckles,
bitter herbs and acrid hope. and
I was a wretch poorly clothed
A dusk so black even
darkness cursed, but I
lost you in vinegar soil
foul-mouthed and stricken ill,
With you I have fallen and
fall still