Alchemisland

Eerie my quiet place in sleepless city’s soundful evening Erie fatal descent but for the sounding senses Diving death assured depths rebounding Cupping returning the thrum hubbub hum rising resounding Desert sand psalms written for now-deserted sepulchres alien to the city We’ve put the Mandylion on a slow wash.

Sealed shirt with blemishless napkin waterfalling Invertebrate table manner number 1: no elbows Wincing, bracing-for-worst butlers hold leg-loud trays aloft Feast my fears served on silver platters First my worst: spiders aggrieved at granddads I spattered, shoe-sole tomb Fear I fought, feast despite it, on course the full course with dessert room

Congregation filing out Church filling out, vestry feels tight Rank with accidie rank and file Snow outside Rankin Bass Brass outside blackened railings Bracken shades shy songbird’s wailing Worms within but frost encasing As between God and subject Graves, gospels, altars all defiled, secret Father’s name reviled Plucked from plots gyring skyward, saint-near and near-saints…

Pink mist ensorcells moon-blued hill round Bone-choked dells wolf-delved cauldron vespers  Humbled observers shake like web-caught leaves The distantly gaunt decorous in proximity Wonder-fraught moors moon-bleached Moon a haunted world Branches sag bitter-bitten orbs Grace of glass and flesh forbidden to iron Ferrous quills construct codices paperless Khmer colonnettes scanned from every angle Irreplicable in…

Rose-wrapped ivory tower your gold-sawed finger regimentally straight Bushel of pallid shorn staves triangled inside smokerise-shape-sleeve Nails pearlescent, docking round of sunrise paler Scent recollection’s ease; Hers resurrected Nazarene Sweet heaven-sent honey on hair, harlot high priestess Castilian rose scent surrounds myroblyte’s enclosure Stealing glances, steeling lances the cirrus banks of heaven hot with horse-breath…