Alchemisland

Flight instinct kicking in

Stick around, source within

Skin thin

Bones seen beneath

Inching obscenely

In the fingers, at the cheek

Even during sleep

Creaking, squeaky greasing easy

The wheel of a bike careening

Spinning long after a car hit its driver head on

Haunted by dead cyclists, suffering infringements

At vision’s fringes, their boldness or temporary temerity

Hinging on my penance’s severity, sleeping under a cherry tree

I see above me the soles of feet of men dying by hanging, perhaps bandits

The hangman obscures his countenance with a sackcloth burlap mask

He who swings the axe unfit wholly to his task

The haft strikes and the blade off flys, the due-died survive

Past their due date, and must be pardoned for their crimes

But not in this rhyme, not this time, the pipers pipe

By the roadside as rough boys cut down the corpses with short knives

Engorged eyes on stalks like wilting flowers, black tongue stuck out the mouth’s side

Flyblown, as any meat left outside, the best trifle given the tribal chieftain for eating

A short ride thence to the bog, where their god lives, aeons surviving

Older than druids, preceding every arrival which peopled Eireann, making mythic rivals.