Incendiary Chariots

Well-traveled is my longing,

on a humble dirt path
winding beside the marsh,

trailing into the muffled dark.

The fever of the moon

leaves sweat on the temples,

causing my mouth to engage

and disengage like a clam.

My face is pocked with
the green stuff of swamps,
algaeic are my tears,
clinging like parasites.

Like pike in murky waters,

the coming months
will make away with my
fingers and toes.

Incendiary chariots
led by sky-black stallions
form rank to carry me
into the distant doom.

Should I allow them,
not even the bells of smoke
clanging for my name-day
will ring loud enough

over the clamor of hooves,
snapping chimneys
and bell towers like grain,
the hellish horde of doubt.

fancy that, even stars can burn ugly

my pointer finger

has turned yellow

from smoking

in bed

all day long

i have no concern

for the weather

that's coming

or the weather

that's past

the rush of winter

closing in on

huddled figures

outside Perkins

freezing themselves

to death slowly

sucking on

smoke 

my teeth 

turn yellow daily

from bubbles

and ash

staining my

corrected canvas

leather is the 

textile of death

the walls grow

ornery and stink

dogs pee on the

floor when they are

happy dogs pee 

on the floor 

when they are sad

i am much the same way

always pissing on the floor

letting a trail follow me

the same color

as my pointer finger

a telltale sign of selfmurder

a calling card for cancer

my seal of selfworth

Lady Nature on the Lethe

I had her for a thousand months.

She was my finest patron,

a nymph with leaf-golden hair.

She'd bring me the fresh pulp

of bodies gnashed by rocks,

faces blackened by storm.
She quickly forgot them, licking

the sockets of my skull,

thrusting a hand through my robe,

tugging on my mortality,

glistening the vipers of my lips

with the balm of her fingertips,

a frost like failing autumn.
Every morning her garden was
withered and grey, dry as my bones,

though every night it rained.