Poetry / Romeo Unraveling (Analysis)

-PART I-

I- Prologue

Cold steel
and lack of motion
draw the life from
my body as I sit,
watching the quiet
nurse pull out
my nails.
Cracking
reaches my ears,
cold steel
brushes
flesh.

II- Trip Home

Left foot screams
in agony as I
push on the
gas with
the right.
Whites grab
steering wheel
as I gaze off
into the
wheezing rain.
Radio static,
rain pitter-latter,
heavy breathing
relief.

III- Front Doors

Brown, cracked,
moldy and torn;
Tan, worn in
at a thousand places
where
hands felt
miracles.
Locked and shuttered off
from the despairing
rain
which assaults
the stars,
from sleet
birthed in heaven.
Eyes watch
me as
I pass down
the street,
looking for a sign
to
stay shuttered
up for
seven years.

IV- Relaxation

A warm couch
with ready books
wait for my arrival.
shoes, sweater,
hat,
shed upon tiled
floor.
Lizard watches through
glass and
curious eyes
as I
assimilate into
worn fabric
that I
love

A shot of pain –
medication wears off,
leaves me with
ancient pain,
unbearable-unbending.
Clasping hands
don’t slow
pulses
push through.

I try to visit a place
agony cannot follow.

A conversation
earlier that day.
Heart accelerates,
eyes water…
go black.

-PART II-

V- Descent

Wind escapes Earth
as breath form
a passing infant,
never to return to
mother(Nature)’s
arms.
The mother-sky
weeps as
Father Time washes
filthy hands
in cobalt
oceans.
Lonely whales
gather to
feast, blood-filth.
Oh,
crucified baby,
son of apathetic
deities, birthed of
moist fern in
ancient forests,
it is you who,
so young,
shall feet gods.

Mountains shudder,
shaking loose
rock as a
dog does water.
Oceans ebb
and retreat to
oblivion.
I can see this all
as it rushes
up to
meat me,
grind to dust
senseless emotion
which hath borne and
slain all the
stars in
Heaven.
Escaping
winds whip
pale flesh as
it hurries,
debris left
stranded,
embedded in
skin and bones.

Close my eyes
as the black
cracked earth
rises.

VI- The Prophet

In rushing blackness,
cold and lifeless,
he stands,
mere shadow
of what was once
named “Man.”
A mask of
amber sets
a backdrop for
startling,
alert eyes;
watching, waiting,
disassembling
all he sees
in nanoseconds,
to rebuild it
again.
Damp, limp
cloak-cloth
hangs from
distorted frame,
gnarled hands
gripping each,
writhing,
twisting,
contorting
as a nervous
fawn.

He doesn’t blink.
He stands –
no, hovers –
before me, in
perfect night.

Emptiness; loneliness; scared; baffled.

“I am the Prophet,
I know all that was,
is,
and ever shall be,”
His voice, a whisper
of the chainsaw,
the authority of
a pig.
“And I have
been watching
you.”

Suddenly,
fires form
on stone floors
and walls,
a ceiling caked in cobwebs,
The faint
ringing of a
child’s music-box,
as my mother
once had.

Meat hooks suspend
as I watch
the Prophet –
Nosferatu, the Vampire-King –
as his head
raises to meet
the gruesome
spectacle.

“I have a warning,”
mouth moves beneath
a smiling sun-mask,
eyes narrow, chill
to bone.
“You stand on the
brink of clarity.
You will see,
and it will frighten you.
You will feel,
and it will torture you.
You will hear,
and it shall haunt you.”
Looks down,
gnarled hands white
as golden light grows
within,
brighter,
brighter,
brighter.
Hand opens,
Fades to black.
Hit the ground.

VII- Awakening

Dust coats lungs
as light
washes
Hangover Head –
eyes ease open
to alien world,
subconscious realm.
(nightmare and dreamscapes)
Push up with
sticks to
see surrounding
devastation,
green plants
burnt orange.
Angry skies rip
apart ferns with
lightening,
yellow, tingling,
whipping the faithless.
Harsh wind agrees.
Animals graze thick
ash into mouths
white as cotton,
the skinandbone-elk
and deers.
A snake with legs,
eyeless, Eeyore the rotting ass,
ears drooped to
mud and muck as he searches
for clarity.

VIII- Safari

No rest for the wicked,
and none shall I receive
as tired legs traverse
rocky ash and
molten love
that constructs
wherever I am.
The lemon-sun
pours citric acid
over my antagonized skin;
I cannot get it to stop.

Of all the creatures,
not one is familiar –
no wooly bears, curious
rabbits or vicious crows/
no buffalo or dogs,
no giraffes, eating
dead trees which
form prison bars between
earth and sky.

Hours and no shelter
takes me,
revealing only homes
of ravenous lions,
hyenas,
jackals,
Anubis and Odin.

I collapse
on soft soil,
as the world bids
hello to the
Hero Who Never Was.
First eyesight
grows fuzzy,
objects blending
to tequila consistency;
feel nothing but
the tentative tracks of scorpions,
spiders,
millipedes;
hear the distant cry
of the werewolf
and the crash of the
flying saucer.

The whisper
of a Chainsaw.
“There he is.”

-PART III-

IX- The Little Girl

Silk brushes bruise,
caresses life into
a corpse,
gives life
to what was dead.
Out of the haze,
a little girl,
pale faced with
bloody, almond eyes
and with roots for
fingers;
brushed hair dangles in the
eternal cavern night,
spiderwebs,
falling over shoulders
clothed in
rotten cotton.
Small hands
hold mine,
cold but not
distasteful,
as tear beg me wake.
“Wake up.”
Voice as a sad canary,
breath as rainwater;
tired eyes drink in
daughter, sister, cousin.

Slime drips form
careless walls as two –
young and younger –
wait at the sorry bottom;
simple survival and
then some.

Tiny, pale lips
speak words to deep
to be hers.
“I am the Ariel.
I saved you from
the sun.
You should not
be here.”
Concern jumps blindly
from bloody eyes.
“They do not want
you here.”

“Who?”

Upon her face,
a mask of
gooseflesh.
“The suffering.”
Scared eyes
search room,
breath visible now,
getting cold.

Spooks,
the girl lurches
onto tiny, booted
feet.
Ukrainian Rosenrot,
spins a circle,
retreats to the
shadows.

“I’ll be back”
her final words.

X- Bats in a Noose

It is not easy
to sit in a
mouth of rock,
with tongues
of snake,
bats hanging
themselves
from the roof.

XI- Shadows in Silence

They dance to the beat
of footsteps,
on damp and slimy
rock walls.
Silent,
shadow people
assault the eyes
as hushed breathes
haunt ears.
Trying to find
the Ariel,
I am by myself
but not alone;
in an environment
that screams
bloody silence.

Echoes;
drippings of liquid;
soundtrack to the
“Beast in the Cave.”
Voices in the dark

speak riddles.

XII- Darkfall I

The cavern, at once
a vast subterranean plane
is now,
transmogrified,
a narrow path
between
covetous
stone slabs.
They push in on
me as a child
pushes on a worm.
I can only hope
not to lose my mind.

A spectral wind
brushes
clothes, hair, face,
as it breathes
past me –
it smells of mold,
must, like
Grandma’s attic.
Like something
old and forgotten,
lost for eons,
It dries out
all it touches.

Eyes water.
Nose bleeds.
It leaves me
cold and dry
and all alone.

Dim light,
the cave turns,
not a plane, nor
claustrophobic path,
but a bridge,
dimly lit to
show nothing
but path and
cliffs beside it,
falling into darkness,
waiting
with hungry jaws
and greedy talons.
Watching for
the smallest
misstep.

What waits in
this ethereal abyss,
living with demons,
maggots.

I cannot
spy the end
of this ‘bridge,’
lying in darkness
eyes cannot pierce.

Careful steps,
eyes wide fearful,
arms held
wide open,
yet not enough
to loose balance.

XIII- Darkfall II

Solid stone supports
a lonesome soul
in this place…
…darkfall.

Am I halfway across
or a quarter?
Is there a way to tell
how far I am,
or how far a fall
I face?

Grandma’s wind
has not returned,
but when it does,
it will push me
into the abyss.

Baby steps,
baby steps,
baby steps,
baby steps.

A rotting head,
the color of a baby girl’s room,
watches me
from its perch on a
stick on the
edge.

Halfway there?
Halfway there.

A rock falls,
the echo
of its landing
never reaches
my ears.

The revelation
sends chills
down my
spine
as spiders.

Invisible eyes
watch me,
scorpion
watching a
cricket.

Fifty,
one hundred,
two hundred,
the path
widens,
a tongue.

Dim, gray light
grows, slowly,
like gingivitis.
Vines on walls,
bones white as snow,
inch-thick dust carpet,
are revealed to me.

Stairs.
Leading up.
The Stairway to Heaven?
The walls have returned,
slimy, wet,
as well as
Grandma’s Wing.
Hand grips wall
with calluses.

I keep walking,
ground levels
out,
tired muscles
surface,
as do
tables.

Big, thick,
cut of stone,
chipped, the smell
of mist mixed
with death;
windows fixed with
crosses,
an Eye of God
filled with moonlight…

Not tables –
sarcophagi.
Coffins.
Beds for the dead.

Suddenly,
longing for the darkness
to return.
The lids are covered in
cobwebs,
tarantulas,
guano,
mold.

In front
of me,
a door.
Open it,
and step
onto cool,
damp grass.

-PART IV-

XIV- The Defiler

Headstones surround me,
stone statue people watching
the stars in all their
gray, cracked, faded
glory
of decades past.

Radiation mist
floats silently
above the
uncut grass.

Ancient wind blows
decay, death
in my direction,
eternal loneliness
bathed in
silver light.
Oh, moon, how many
times have you
witnessed such
scenes?

I look around, living periscope
in a city,
New Necropolis.
Old stone markers
bearing dates,
named rubbed off
or not etched
at all
by angry
survivors.

The far edges
take refuge in
shadow.
In the center,
brand new
Stonehenge
with an
alter.

Then,
out of darkness,
a light,
one, two,
slowloy floating
at waist
level,
the distant
sound of
footsteps
and orgasms.

Curiosity
pulls me
toward
mystery
lights.

Growing,
out of silence,
a slithering,
bones crushed faintly,
flesh ripped as leather.

Paralleling the lights,
a pair of nineteen-year old
green girls wlak,
rigid back,
staring straight
ahead,
pale faced
with amnesia.
Serpentine form
slithers past
in shadows,
leaving a hushed
trail of fear.

A moaning from behind –
I turn, watch
dead trees
bow silently to
gods unseen,
maybe something more…

Spectres’ shadows
circle above,
watching with
hallowed eyes
and wringing
mummified
hands.

Look back,
no lights in the graveyard –
lights in the alter!!!

And

I am there,
standing between
stone and stone.
The women undress,
reveal ghostly skin offset
by cherry-red-brown,
scars,
as serpentine shadow
flows through shadows,
looking slightly more solid.
Slightly more….disturbing.

Chanting,
the girls
are chanting
now.

“We are ready now,
take us.”
Speaking unison,
naked on twin
stone slabs,
pricked by
goose-fleshed.

Out of the
shadows it comes,
real as any man;
scaled-snake body;
torso and arms of
a man;
head of dog with
man mouth and
goat horns;
he eyes rising
breasts with
cat eyes.
Slithers over,
caresses brows
with muscled, cold,
skinned hands:
nails scrape flesh,
leave bloody fingerprints;
caress, stroke,
and grab body,
examine and
fill all
orifices.

The Defiler
smiles an all
too human
smile;
familiar horde
assaults spine.

It salivates,
as they moan,
high-pitched
heartbreaking,
erotic,
insane.

Grandma’s Wind blows
as the Defiler reaches
deeper inside.

Ghosts tremble,
mouths scream silently,
vaginas pulse spasmodically,
for release.
The moans, now screams,
“Fuck!” “Oh, God!”
“Shit!”
Tears run down faces,
tainted tears run down faces,
tainted tongue slithers
out…

“For the love of God,
stop it!”
Unforeseen volcanic-horror
escapes my lips.
Hands fist, trembling
with rage.

Everything stops.

The Defiler, still
bent over gorging
nineteen-year old vaginas.
The girls sit up,
eyes wide,
stare at me.

“Intruder.”
Speech in
unison.

Defiler raises
up, serpentine spine
crackling as it turns,
hand slipping to
its sides. Coals pierce my soul
as the naked
burn to ash,
blown away by
Grandma’s Wind.

Mouth open,
unnatural width,
fangs the size
of daggers.

A hiss, not just the
Defiler’s, but
the environment’s.

Slithering
blackness is
upon me.
Icy stomach churns
acid to throat,
heart freezes,
mind blanks,
soul knocked senseless
as darkness
caves in.

XV- Ariel’s Lullabye

Once again I visit
half-wake-half-sleep,
vision blurred,
quasi-awareness.
I can feel;
not cold, but warmth
is not here;
I can smell
slight Grandma’s Wind.
I can hear,
faint voice of a woman
singing a lullabye.
Eyes crack open.

Her form wipes
my forehead with
damp rags,
twisted, torn
with time,
effort,
silk hands.

Headache screams,
tempting
fuzzed world
pulse.
It shudders, and
slips the
grasp of
consciousness.

Familiar spider-web strands.
A song of a sad canary.

The Ariel’s frigid warmth
wakes me
to a cold,
semi-lit world.
Grey walls
watch as
I lie upon a worn,
brown couch,
head resting on
frayed pillow.

My body aches,
one journey too
many.

Eyes ease open.

Ariel,
dressed in
beggar’s clothes,
watches me
as I lie;
concern crinkles her
brow around
her eyes,
normal, brown eyes,
not bleeding,
still somehow
resembling almonds.

A steel basin,
cratered,
holds water
beside her.

“Where am I?”
My mouth,
as mush and cotton
swabs.

“Home.”
For moments,
she watches
silently.
“I told you they didn’t
want you here.”
Eyes betray calm
demeanor with
concerned sorrow.

Mind remembers
graveyard,
naked women,
snake-man,
ash,
torture.
“I saw…
…I saw…”

“I know what
you saw.”
Voice a sweet
melody, heard
by no mortal
ears.
“The Defiler:
borne of fire, ash,
and hate, with
the brain of a man
and the heart of a
snake. Vicious,
malignant,
traitorous,
a taste for
flesh and filth
never appeased.
Destroyer of light
and hope.”

What about
“The women?”

Answers
make thirsty minds,
scarred and
hopeless
hearts.

Tears,
pale blue and frozen,
run down her
face as horses.
“My family. And others.”

“Why?”
Labored breathing,
aching ribs.

“My great grandparents
were magick. They called
up the Defiler to protect
us
but did not know
the cost.”

“The ‘cost’?”

“He is nothing that
have ever walked
in human form,
on this planet
or any other.”

A…

“Demon, yes.”
Sigh, tired,
used breath
exhaled.
“You interfered;
Defiler is angry.
He will stop at nothing
to get you.”

Fear rises
indistinctly
in the throat.
“What do I do?”

“Get out,”
eyes narrow,
once again
bloody-almond eyes
briefly, switching
back.
She glares at
her feet.
“I’ll help as
much as I can.
Now that you’ve
interfered,
the suffering will
kill all in their
way to stop you.”

Curiosity strikes again;
can a rose
defeat the shears?
“Why?”

“They control this realm.”

A slender arm
explores under
the couch,
pulls out
aged papers.

There is
the Ariel’s face,
a name:
Rusalka.

XVI- Tattered Fabric of Used and Borrowed Moments

In this world,
time not only
kills kings and
mountains,
but conjures
dead,
raises hopes to
slay them
as quickly as
they came;
like cattle.

Time is handed down,
from person to person,
tattered, old,
borrowed,
worn to thread-worms,
clinging to flesh,
babies to bosom.

Relativity is nonexistent,
minutes are eternal,
years pass in
blinks;
heal as a god,
or decompose
to compost
in a day.

It was this
Rusalka
lent me,
this clingy,
suffocating shroud,

and the mirror,
showed truth
without reserve,
of what the
Defiler had
ravaged.

Scars,
deep, ragged,
cover my hands
and arms;
my nose
slightly
transmogrified
by vile hands.
Eyes bleed,
lip split in
three places;
fatigue hangs
from brow,
a veil.

Rusalka stands
behind me, watching,
silent,
head tilted.

I sit on a
wooden stool in a
white-tiled rest-room;
she puts cold warmth
around mich,
und Rosenrot
lays her head on my
shoulders.

Wasser drips,
drips,
drips
slowly from
nozzle into
China basin.

I drift
in and out
on the border
of worlds,
love, hate,
life, death.

Rusalka radiates
aura much older
than she,
mature, away,
wise, wary.

Primal connection,
brought on wings
of simple survival,
gown, nurtured by
need/necessity
into more.

Sielnce;
two lonely souls
breathe shallow.
In porcelain-cloud tub,
escape eludes a spider.

Bright light
pours on us
as water.

“He makes me do things”
soft voice breaks silence, speaking
as in a trance.
“Gets in my
head and
makes me do
stuff I don’t
want to do.”

“Who?”

Sniffle through
dry nostrils.
“Him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t’ want
to say his
name.”

We wait in silence,
in a pale bathroom;
the spider turns
to dust in seconds.

-PART V-

XVII- Twilight; Sleep; Gone

Over the forsaken
world, the sky
turns orange,
purple, black.
Fatigue pulls
down tired, stinging
eyelids.

XVIII- Mourning in the House of Glass

Blood rises up
over eastern
hills,
sheds light
through
dusty windows,
to rest on
my face.

Pale warmth
sinks into my
body,
motionless on
couch.

Loneliness,
dim awareness
all alone
in a
House of Dust
that smothers everything.

Eyes sprint open,
greeted by a
water logged,
shimmer-mirrored
world.

My image stares back
a thousand times,
big ones, small ones,
round and oval,
long, short.
Intact, cracked,
seven years
worse luck.

Sntinels,
they watch
all rooms,
hallways.
Staring into
eternity,
hands bound.

A spot of dust in a porcelain tub.
A teat.
Life fleets past.

XIX- The Buggy

It waits in
hot sunlight,
shit-paint
peeling,
tomato rust growing.

Dir windshield.

Open it’s cracking door,
piles of ash
stain seat,
plastic wrappers and
piss-soaked papers.
Worn seat
welcomes, as I
lock belt around me…
turn key…
ignition!

A canary’s song.
“You know where to go.”

A whisper of
the chainsaw.
“Go to where the children die.”

Buggy races,
35…
45…
50….
in the distance,
Jack-o-lantern
looms.

Wind rips my hair.

XX- Halloween Town

A hospitable
Jack-o-lantern,
an old friend of souls,
master bedrooms,
B&Bs,
a forum.
Built in
mountain,
it stares, smiles at
the plains giving hope,
happiness.

Until it happened.

It swept through
the town,
Grandma’s Wind.
Turned all to dust.
Nobody knows where
the children went.

XXI- The House of Trick or Treat/Schlitz I

Buggy dies
just outside a
two story,
dilapidated
building,
door rusted,
half hinged.
Wood over windows.
Water drips
from roof.

I walk onto
stone steps
growing filth.
Ease open reluctant
crimson.

Cool, raven air
greets a
sweaty, beaten,
golden brow.
All is dark,
quiet.
Step inside.
Close crimson.

Shelves –
eyes adjust,
a thousand shelves.
And dolls!
Porcelain, ceramic,
with soulless, cosmos
eyes,
candy-apple lips.
Pristine, cracked,
they sigh silence
at my entrance
to their home.

Ageless chant
screams through walls.
“Trick or treat,
smell my feet,
give me something good to eat.”
Children. The
dolls spy me
unrelentingly
If you don’t,
I don’t care,
I’ll pull down your underwear.”

I leave bootprints
in dust; almost calmed
by blueberry walls.
Everywhere,
kitchen, diningroom,
den, bath –
soulless dolls,
blueberry background,
chanting.

I stare up a flight
of rickety
wooden stairs,
firelight
top,
flickering warm
October.
The pitter-patter
of child feet.

Behind me,
ghosts slink
through time,
spider-like, serpentine
remnants of Defiler.

I raise a foot.
Take the first step.

XXII- Defiler at the Door

Lemon-light beats
it sickly skin
as it coils itself
on doorstep,
skinned hands push open
crimson door.
Its ears are met
by chants.
It knows it
is close;
it knows it cannot
enter.

XXIII- Schlitz II

At the top of the stairs,
a room waits,
tortoise door
letting fire escape
with voices of children.
Candy-corn smoke
fills my nose,
awakens frightened
inner child, scratching at
steel walls with
bloody, pulpy, nail-less
fingers.

The noxious odor
terrifies me deep
inside,
give a preview of
hidden shadows;
fire-music is
brighter, louder.

He stands on a pedestal,
water-worn maple, holding
pales in gloved hands.
Dressed in cow-spotted clown suit,
head bald, tilted clown-cap
perched atop it.
He is assaulted by children,
Halloween costumes,
clasping, grasping
hands.
He stares at them
with hollowed eyes,
rose-red, speaks to them
through sewn lips.

The children pulse,
maggots,
chanting mindlessly.
Clown merely
watches,
passively digesting
atomosphere,
raging bonfire behind him,
a maple inverted pentagram
slight with children’s
hopes and fears.

Grandma’s Wind
passes through an
open window,
playing tag with
clothes, hair,
raises ash from
death,
turning it
into fireflies.

Curious feet
drag me forward,
still watches against
all hope.

He looks up at me,
raises skeletal hand,
points through
ash-fireflies as me,
children turn,
feet shuffle,
I’m stared at by a thousand
vacant, cherry sockets.

They take tiny steps toward me,
tiny feet pittering
through dust,
hands raised in greed.

Fall backward, crawl over
rustic floors,
a beat dog.
Look back,
the children still
coming.

Raise myself up,
stumble downstairs
to land by
crimson,
within reach of
Defiler.

XXIV- The Flood

I am stuck between an angry,
rock-skinned Defiler
and a flood of
devil children.

Nowhere to go between
a rock and a hard place.

-PART VI-

XXV- The Church, Rusalka, and the man

Darkness.
Cold penetrates every
nerve of
an aching,
rose-red beat
body.
Fain organ tunes
pierce
disbelieving ears
as familiar cold
places itself, softly,
on my hands,
brow.
Dim light stings sleepy eyes;
I witness.

A church,
honey cathedral,
dozens of maple pews
watch Christ’s
eternal suffering
on night-iron cross.
Tattered chairs,
cloths, wallpaper
fall around him,
eternal candle
flickered long ago.

Stain glass window
shattered on crimson
carpet.
Holy dust infests air slowly.

Rusalka sits beside
me, her almost eyes
not human, red-almost,
like something form
star specked cosmos.
They turn when they glimpse
cracked eyes,
smiles honest teeth.

Raven spiderweb-hair hangs in
her face, brushing
against mine in
calming tendrils.

She places frigid hands over my eyes,
speaks.
“He has seen Him;
He has seen Schlitz.”

Voice raises from
one pew;
a man, trench coat
and top hat, all black
watches us and speaks.
“Then he is damned.”

He walks towards us.
“We should leave.”

Anger in deep pools.
The Ariel’s face wrinkles
like a paper bag.
“No.”

Dazed wind races
to keep up;
I’m there all over again.

“He’s come to far,
I can’t leave him now.”
Do they know I’m
conscious?

“You want more trouble?
Remember,
you’ve a price on
you’re scalp already.
By the feds and
the Defiler.”

She caresses my forehead,
hand cold-silk.
“It doesn’t matter
anymore.”

“You care too much
for this pilgrim,
or not enough for
yourself.”

Angry looks shoots
from her face.
“Then so are you!”

Laugh, cold, hollow,
heart-filled, warm.
“Have you told him
who you are?
About the feds,
and your family –
your true family?”

“I will when it is right.”

“And if the Defiler
finds you?”

“Schlitz is the bigger
threat now.”

“So you are
smart after all.”

Blackness overcomes me
once again.

XXVI- Herr Nemo

I open weary
eyes and
hours pass.
Rusalka, in a corner,
bent of what…
I cannot see.

But the man stares down at me,
his face worn,
framed by cloudy-sideburns.
He smiles.

“Hello there.
Good to see
you awake.”
Bows,
removed hat with
callused hands,
revealing scars, baldness.
Holds out his hand.
“Herr Nemo,
at your
service.”

I look around,
cannot comprehend.
“Where am I?”

“The Cathedral
of Silence.”

Shadows move through
forgotten spaces
God doesn’t visit.
Raven roses
wait, dusty and alone,
in rusted vases.
Something about Nemo
is out of place.

Walk over to
Rusalka,
try to see
but she looks at me,
bends over her
lap,
almost a jealous
infant.

Lay a hand on her
cold shoulder.

She hisses,
a cat.
“It’s not
ready.”

Grandma’s Wind is
back,
blowing
hair and silk
in my face.
I close my eyes,
open and
she’s gone.

Cobalt tears run down cheek.

XXVII- The Greatest Story Never Told

The sun watches
from its afternoon
seat
through broken windows,
from a clear
sky.
Rusalka is
finishing whatever it was;
Nemo has gone away.

I wait
in a dusty-maple
pew, staring
at Christ as he
continues, forsaken
gray tears
skittering down his face.

Rusalka is cutting what she
will not let me see,
as I wait to heat the
greatest story never told.

XXVIII- The Death of It All

The child who
fed gods lies
ruined,
beneath feet.
The soft steps as
the child-woman
Rusalka walks,
holding whatever-it-is
behind a
rigid back,
staring at the ground before her.

Almost to me,
I hear the
subtle song of birds.
“I have defied gods,
and demons,
stood alone
in the frigid land
between life, death,
light and shadow.
I am your
heart and armour,
you –
my sword,
my shield.
I have seen all you’ve seen;
witness the birth of Rome,
and laughed at it’s fall.”

Ashes die,
give birth to
fuzz-flies, which
draw themselves to
frigid warmth.

“I’ve betrayed
my roots, my
heavenly family,
worldly filth,
bore witness to the
answers of the cosmos, the
great shroud you have
yet to remove you’re your
blind eyes.”
She looks at me,
a crystal
horse running down a pale plain.
“I have seen how the world ends.”

Grandma’s Wind blows
the flies away;
cotton in the wind
burns to dust.

“I have seen
our fates,
that of
the suffering,
and that of
the forgotten.”
crystal horse runs down,
off the edge of
velvet cliffs.
“The death of it all.”

She pulls a
leather notebook,
worn by sands,
from behind her.

XXIX- Photograph

Hard fingers
open notebook,
trace photograph,
tattered, yellowed
with time.

Her face stares out
of the photo,
only one.
It makes my mind spin
circles…

XXX- Two Halves of the Same Kind

…it’s a family.
A mother, raven
hair, eyes as night skies,
draped in
dirt-brown dress
and shawl;
A father, leather jacket,
cowboy hat, whiskers.
The couple cradles
a helpless
infant,
flushed with agitation which
flows through tiny
veins.

The mother has no face.

The face of the baby:
Rusalka.

Under a leather ceiling,
I stare back
at me…

Grandma’s Wind
bursts through
white-washed doors.

XXXI- Bloodlines

Electrical
storms brew
in my aching head.
Chrome table,
mechanical god watching from ceiling,
almond eyes gather
around a bound Rusalka,
crying her soul out,
probing,
examining,
learning.

It pulses,
glows,
fades,
a dust devil in
pale winter snows.

I am crying,
crystal serpents
sliding down plains,
past protein trees,
as I hold
her photo.

I blink.
The memory is
crumpled and gone.

-PART VII-

XXXII- The Church, Defiled

Grandma’s Wind
blows past us,
rustles hair,
spiderweb-silk, stirs dust,
flows toward Christ;
it flees like a school of fish
as He is absorbed
by darkest shadows, serpentine.
A hiss reaches my ears,
brings sadness,
fear
to the Ariel’s eyes.

The defiler
crawls out from behind
Jesus, slithers,
creeps,
slinks
to the foot
of the cross.
It eyes us hungrily,
looks at Rusalka
with hideous skull glint
in its eyes.

XXXIII- Everything’s Eventual

Rusalka turns around,
a doll on a stereo-player,
meets the beasts glare.

“It’s about time,”
her eyes turn ,
bloody almost caves.
“Everything’s eventual.”

XXXIV- Snake-Man vs. the Losers

The Defiler raises itself
upon its scaled tail,
looks from
Rusalka to me,
and growls the growl
of a thousand demons,
its mouth the newest
portal to hell.
It beats on its chest
with skinless hands,
as a gorilla would,
shaking its head a
whiter shade of vile.

Rusalka stands her ground,
stiffly staring at the thing
with a mature determination
that does not match her
child’s frame.
Her strength gives me strength,
these new,
unforeseen revelations
giving a stream of
power to our consciousness.

A pair, together we stand.
Pillars against the incoming tragedy
of predestination.

The Defiler begins to pace –
rippling ribs under skin –
edging toward us, eyes wild,
untamed diamonds of hate,
malice;
lips pulled back, dagger teeth
dripping malice,
drip,
drip,
drip,
drip onto the floor of Christ’s home,
turning to filth,
sacrilege,
abominations smile at us
from their homes in dust.

It lets loose,
its mouth widening,
flashbacks racing through
memory,
a place of the physical dead
replaced by a realm
of spiritual abandonment.
Howl swims through air,
shockwaves burning cotton
so it spirals downward
into ethereal depression.

Cysts, boils, blisters
grow on skin,
tormenting the Ariel and me;
tempting me to scratch the newly
decimated skin,
ripping, prying, shedding living
skin to reveal deep crimson
crying.
Ears ring,
eyes blur briefly;
enough to let the
Defiler half the
distance between us.

Rusalka is beside me,
her cold hand reaching
toward mine,
palm against palm,
fingers intertwined.
Together, we shake,
we stand,
against the demon,
our adversary.

XXXV- Heightened Senses

In this moment,
hand in hand,
the woman in a
now teenage body,
fingers laced with
crank and fear,
I am laced also with
a heightened sense of reality:
cowardly Grandma’s Wind
sucking itself from the room;
imprints underneath us in the
dusty carpeting;
Christ’s forlorn look
skyward, longing
for a father that
doesn’t remember;
the hunched, agitated back
of the Defiler.

XXXVI- Blackout

The Defiler slinks towards us,
angry,
hungry,
waiting for a moment
that is only moments away:
dinner.
Our hands generate strength,
courage,
hope,
the knowledge that
whatever happens,
we will either live
or die together.

I step in front of her,
the pilgrim to this world
taking a stand
for what is right,
against tyrants
old and vile and twisted,
who rule their realm with bloody fists of hate,
who demand nothing but
senseless servitude
from dying, naked women-servants
who burn to ashes.

It moves forward,
fast as ever, raises a hand,
and with an queasy iron stomach
I face the blackout
for a second time.

XXXVII- New Pain

I wake up,
body contorted
painfully between
two maple pews,
blood running from my nose,
ears,
chest aching with blows
of great pressure,
coagulated blood
on my shirt.

Hissing, crying,
sounds of struggle;
hastily struggle to see.

Rusalka is on her hands, knees,
bloody with a martyr’s blood,
tears running from bloody-almond
eyes,
sobbing as the Defiler stands over her,
smiling for Satan and all he reigns over in hell.

It raises a hand,
makes a fist,
meat red, bone white.

“Hey, bastard.”

A head turns toward me,
angry and sneering at
this new development.

I turn, looking
at the silhouette
which stands between
open white washed doors,
trench coat and top hat.
Nemo. He came back.

“The bitch is mine.”
His words emanate shockwaves,
the whispers of a chainsaw,
burning the skin on all who hear it…

…two seconds too late.

-PART VIII-
XXXVIII- The Alliance Falls

Flesh mallet descents,
cracking of skull as Rusalka
falls to the floor,
her final breath escaping her body as he
eyes turn to normal,
looking at me.
Her final breath sounds like
my name;
in an instant, the world
dims, a candle
snuffed out in Death’s home.

It is something I cannot comprehend.

Nemo takes a step forward,
his chainsaw words grinding
as he drops his top hat and coat,
pulling an amber mask form his back
pocket, placing it upon his face.
“We had a deal, remember?
You could have the boy, if you
let me have the bitch who brought him here.”

Defiler shakes his mangy head,
snarls at him. It springs,
and I am lifted by meaty
hands above its head, turned backwards to
face Nemo,
the Prophet,
who stares at us
through narrow eyeholes.

He pulls out a
blade, stainless steel,
sharp.
“I’m not the man with whom to fuck.”
A flick of the wrist,
the scent of the blood and the blade,
running down his arm and onto the floor.

A hiss.
A pressure clamp on my
shoulder blade, the cracking of
bone, the splitting of sinews,
the disassembly of muscle.

I am flying.
I am flying toward Nemo.
I am flying toward Nemo; he drops me
from the air like a fly with the knive, which slices
deep into my stomach,
the serrated edge passing
through my intestines.

I land with a thud,
dust flies into my hair and eyes,
as two demonic-entities –
on pure demon, the other half-breed –
clash in the House of God
over the soul of a pilgrim and
a recently dead little girl
whom I had grown
to love.

 

XXXIX- Mayhem

The mayhem that ensues could
never be matched by any two
mortal men,
blades and bloody fists
and horns flashing
through the dust,
screaming, groaning, howling
as bones are broken for
the failed alliance.

Nemo looses an arm,
Defiler consumes it on the spot, lapping
up the blood. He is halfway
done when Nemo sends him reeling,
kicking him in the torso,
eyes wide with pain and rage,
mouth wide.
The Defiler grabs onto him with
the end of its rotten tail, and drags
Nemo with him to the
base of the night-iron cross.

Jesus turns his head, slowly,
to watch the battle of demons,
new entertainment as
opposed to the old forsaken loneliness
of being without the Father.

The demons continue to fight,
the Son watching over their
twisting, contorting bodies,
transmogrified into one
machine of hate and death and violence,
the Nobody, the Prophet,
versus
the rapist, the Snake-Man.

Minutes, perhaps hours pass,
each entity degrading itself more
in the struggle to win
souls. Eyes missing,
horns broken,
mask cracked.
I stare, almost never blinking;
time stares with me,
forgetting to move.

Between whitewashed doors,
another entity is watching,
silently watching through
hollowed eyes,
and a hundred young eyes
watch behind him.

XL- Interference

Grandma’s Wind blows strongly through
the church, night iron
cross wobbles and comes down, splitting
contestants, bidding them
back away from each other.
They stand, look at each other, and their
eyes – and mine –
are drawn to the figure in the back, silhouetted
against a thousand child eyes.

His clown suit dances
in the wind, his hat
whistling
a lonely tune.

He stares at them,
head cocked,
waiting for something to happen,
steps forward.
Dust and ash fly from underneath
his elongated, pale clown shoes.

Schlitz makes his way toward the contestants,
the referee from hell,
the presence which makes both
Nemo and the Defiler shrink.
He has an aura,
as dark as Rusalka’s was light.

He stands tall, above us all,
and with fear in his eyes,
Jesus watches him from his
high perch.
Schlitz pulls out a bone-knife,
ivory-cream, and slices the
threads which hold his lips together.

The children watch form the door,
form outside windows.
They begin to chant.
“Burn them to the ground.”

XLI- Schlitz Speaks/Spontaneous Combustion

The threads unravel,
and his mouth opens,
blood dripping from his mouth to the floor,
he takes off his gloves, revealing skeletal,
emaciated hands of a starved
individual who has never eaten.

The Defiler tries to
shrink into itself.
Nemo trembles, falls to his knees,
begging inside himself,
to a god that isn’t there.

“What hath you stolen?”
Schlitz voice is soft, yet sharp,
twisted as a piece of car-wrecked metal.
He watches waits,
and all around us, the dust in the air begins to ignite.
The draperies, dried and mangled,
catch.

Soon, the entire church is the
rebirthed sacred flame that
flickered, died long ago.
Jesus weeps,
flesh fleeing with his
tears of sorrow.

 

 

-PART IX-

XLII- Ascent

I close my eyes as
my body burns blue
ashes that fall upon the
cathedral floor.
My spirit is lifted up toward the heavens,
my consciousness rising,
becoming a chariot drawn Icarus,
driving toward the sun with
tar-and-feathered wings.
The pull of the suffering
is left behind me,
and I can only pray that Rusalka
felt this when she passed.

The burning,
searing,
bubbling of fire on skin
has become a distant warmth,
faded into pre-dawn memory,
Nemo, the Defiler, Schlitz
fade from my eyes,
creatures from some half
forgotten dream, their sinister
faces still fresh but safely
beyond reach.

The sun shines on my face.

XLIII- O.B.E. (Out of Body Experience)

I open my eyes,
and I stand on the shag carpet
that covers the floor
of my own home,
the familiar walls and pictures
a welcome sight
after my odyssey to freedom.

But…

I am lying upon the couch
as people come in stand around me,
carrying a stretcher.
My best friend cries, her tears running
down her face,
holding herself as they put
my body in a body bag.
This is wrong.

I can’t be dead. I survived.
The clutches of Schlitz did not grab me,
nor did the Defiler, or the Prophet.
How could this be?
Could God have created such an
abomination?
Would he let me see them take
my body from my house in a cheap
plastic zipper-upper trash bag labeled
CSI?

XLIV- Romeo Reraveling

I am in a cold room, radiation
mist around my feet,
and the feet of doctors wearing surgical
masks , aprons,
holding scalpels and rib saws;
my cold, blueberry body laid before them
on cold steel.
The doctor raises the saw,
and I hear the crunching and sawing as he makes
his way through my ribs to my
most inner circles.

And I am suddenly not alone,
comforted by something
behind me.
I turn.
Rusalka stands there, watching me,
smiling. She walks up to me,
stand beside me and grabs my
hand.
She looks me in the eyes,
deep oceans of emotion
that glimpse into my soul…

I can see part of me in her.

Frigid warmth squeezes my numb hands.
“It’s alright, Daddy.”
She puts frigid arms around me,
squeezes me like her favorite stuffed animal.

I kiss the hair on the top of her head.
Look toward the skies,
and with a tear running down my
dead cheek,
I turn my back on my best friend
and the world I loved.

I walk across the park
holding my daughter’s hand.

-EPILOGUE-

XLV- Note

Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, I think about things. What if where we are going isn’t where we were meant to go? What if there is a past world, where you made a promise and didn’t keep it, and somebody is waiting in the shadows, with the spirits and the ghosts, hoping that you keep it. What if the choices you make leave your little girl from coming out of the shadows, making her cry with every day that you don’t remember her and honor her? What if the ones you love are allowed to pass away until they are nothing more than faces in the crowd? What if you let the demons inside of you take over your life; control you with fear and torment and the inability to move beyond your own bounds? What if you never took that first step into the rabbit hole? Could you live with not knowing? And, if you did, could you live with what you lost? For every action, there is a reaction. For every person who values their life, there is a person who just wants to die because they do not see a point. Rusalka has shown me the reason I am alive; not for myself but for others, to set into motion events which saved a world that lies in the shadow of our own. I had to leave my world behind, which hurts me every day, but I hope those I love know that I will always be with them. But if Heaven and Hell ever decide that they both are satisfied, maybe we won’t have to leave to find a home…

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