KingOberon

The Preacher's Wife She went for the terracotta saucers With stiff ritual movements, Like prayer. Two small flowering hands Open like veiny petals To water them. The way God used to, before the flood. That's the way they like it, Bottoms up, holy water from unknown wells Before it was so bold as to fall. What ancient spirits, They cling to the old ways. These shade lovers, How evolved. You do it so well. Sporting the color of your fathers. You pinch with mute fingertips The brown bits That didn't fit the picture. Removing the pieces, that have died. She moves again on mouse-feet To shrink towards the crying kettle, To

The Widow The ancient breathers exhale Their teeming fog upon the names of the forgotten. The whitening stones writhe with enameled beads. Dots of red and black, To punctuate…and wake The dead. In the rain break, In the glorious robes of November, The blue hedge is calling a new queen in. What heretic guard, Wooing bride to king In this field of bones. She will be wed to the flesh valleys, To the make-believer. A never-girl waits to be admitted. The groom now rarely speaks. He is mute, And the wall has grown too tall to scale And blue as the two moons I've seen here since. Yet, she has made do, Fasting twelve And

Candy Stand Cruelty has raised her blackened hand And touched the face of some dumb child. God smiles upon the stupid, They cannot fend for themselves… Lavender ghosts with Cheshire smiles March to the market, Picking up some rock candy and gummies. Pinking their colorless insides. Marbling their…jelly bellies. But as for me, I will wash it all down With kerosene. Filling crystal goblets One after another Until my insides run with rainbows.

Muzzle Severe vanity clings to you like Teflon. Your scent is vicious, Lust and sweat. Your cow-pink tongue Tends to me like a salt lick. You graze Bristle lipped, In my pits, my valleys, Gorged full. Your smile is skinning me Down to the bone. Suck, lick, kick, kick. Can he speak? No? Feed him roses and he won't recover.

Disenchanted Serious air clutches in the nooks behind her molars. Parade. Mark. A balloonist. The shops burden the heat And in their gassy sway, Lift their tons from the pavement. Heavying the air with her griefs. Calling on father sky to birth her to heaven. A vaporous rise to the shadows of the dim monument. Her flesh, Lifted off the bone Like a bridal veil, lifted to god. Fill me father. Evidence like lead, Branded on my finger. Filling empty spaces With promises and flesh. Is this happiness? It hurts. Is that the way of it? How disappointing. I rocked full, but still hollow. The galvanized eye sockets. My body, th

Mandragora Root reader, You babysit the mandrake. Calling hissing visions out of it's rinds. Paper thin knots in her thirsty skins, Bathed in milk and fed prayers. A daemon's baby doll. Guarding your hopes like a hound It sours in it's wit. Sucking you dry, And pretending To mourn At your miseries. You bind its whining fibers, Red thread round the root, With perilous care. Tiny titan, Fat tick. Glugged full, Draining the damned. Secreting bloody saps, To pool and bloom, across the linoleum

Indian Song A beast stirs over the hill. Drum churned, trampoleened chants Vault up the burrows. Beating heat Into the mountain veins. Human hands Clap To the thunder, Rousing wreathes of beasts… Ballooning melodies are rising, Cumulous breathed, Lathering the moon talkers. An invitation to the last of the wild things. A summons to the last supper. Feather, blood bead, antler anthems, Rattle the call. Maiden's heads reach deep into the dark, Echoing curtains toward the gigas. Heralding the dark parade. Cornucopia's children Birth our table guests Out of the rounds, To seats with mushroom suppers. Crimson struck

Serpentine I writhe in your molten beams, Lit in the shadow of your serpent hood, Melting in my fats And crackling like bacon. A yellow scythe has sliced my spine, Link by link… Twenty seven clicks Bottom to top, Mooning the skull curve. My middle's just slipped out, Down your drain, To the belly of an ancient. Lamia victorious… If only you hadn't got hold of me. You silver lipped snare! I heard your murmurs in the grass, Coming in the distance. Delirious babble, Rolling in swift, like mist. You arrive chanting carbon monoxide. I am fixed, Spellbound, Pulsing poisons, Swallowed whole…

Landings Dust laced and sequin eyed I diligently begin my work. Shield weaver, I build cocoons, Spinning patchwork, Pulsing sanctuaries, In the lees, In the gap of worlds notice. Someone's gone and slapped me away from the warmth, And didn't watch the fall. Long tumble from the bulb. Glowing multitudes peer deep through the weft. I lie amongst the silks, Too many lights to tell where to go. The ant-maids wait In the eaves, For me to dissolve. Armored sentinel. They stand Ready to burden my fragments to their catacomb womb, Carried off by crisp hands. To be laid down Upon the heap.