Seagulls Fleeing New Gomorrah
The colony of seagulls
flocked around the man
who was a black
pillar of salt but
as he moved and
shook life into
his saline-packed
limbs, they flew.
Arising, squawking
they flutter off afraid,
they hunger still, but
know that food can
be found elsewhere.
They are survivors,
they won’t chance
to remain near a
mysterious igneous
being who shambles
his briny body back
and forth, crunching
the ice-embrittled
ground underfoot.
Their squalling caw caws
bloom as they’re aloft,
telling all of the peril
they are leaving behind.
A Painted Farewell-Letter
Safflower whorls of angel-hair,
and cornflower promises of sweet relief,
soothe my brimstone-singed soul.
Life’s verse a wheel of time,
burnt by night-piercing solar flare,
Paradise robbed by black hole.
Beautiful hopes and twisted dreams put me
in a breaking-wheel of circular rhyme
and paint the world my afscheidsbrief.
The Wide Blue World Turned Sideways
The wide blue world turns sideways,
the slack black world burns wide-ways.
From a narrow a window I spied
that many innocents sinners died
and more guilty saints cried;
and the culprits evade punishments
for all the times they lied,
and have never faced banishments
for all the happiness they denied.
Baptismal drownings inspired delta blues,
bellicose killings bloodied soldiers’ shoes,
the death and heat increasing year-by-year;
escalating violence, accelerating destruction,
oaths and promises fulfilled by death.
Comforting prevarications we still believe
because it’s still blue that the sky bleeds.
The flow un-stemmed, no matter what we tried,
Mother Earth no longer cares for our needs.
Felled by our own foolish pride.
Revealed by Moonblood
The Ivory Steed watched
as the moonblood into the sea dripped
as sanguine tides tossed
black-light about
bathed in lunar plasma.
Behemoth ashore breathed
deep, danced for joy.
The Red Stallion glared
as black sunlight colour stripped
the enrobed Chosen climbed,
as tumbling astros broke
time, in spilt black-light
Leviathan was revealed
deep in the ocean.
The Coal-Coated Colt observed,
the stars down the sky tripped,
the opened heavens dimmed
monster silhouette rose,
wings aflap, breathing heavy fire
the Dragon swooped
synced to the star-fall’s motion.
The Pallid Palomino gazed,
the world’s corners cleft,
the bedrock cracked
as livid-stained souls
upward through grey clay
the Demon Prince twirled
enthralled by the new-damned convoy.
The Livid-Coloured Dead
Night fell into his shirt and pants,
drunken arms akimbo expose
a freedom and naked desire,
cigarette burning carcinogenic fire.
Nearby drunkards build a pyre;
birds and dogs offer help,
resisting gravity’s forces,
erecting woody concourses,
to burn all the remorses
the dead may’ve possessed.
Drunkenly dancing dances expressed
the need for spirits to be expressed.
The Blue Man, ringleader, staggered.
Equilibrium gone from the blaggard.
Vacant stares from his ersatz crew.
Tears
cried by mourners most haggard
for Toms, Dicks, and Harrys
these virginal fields have lacquered.
But the premier danseur in cobalt
is unmoved seeking to work the gestalt
he’s created, sanctifying the graveyard.
He and the crew run into bad luck
into grave-beds the dead they can’t tuck,
into that good night they do not go gentle.
So now the battle is not physical but mental.
The livid-coloured dead pit ferocious resistance
against the cobalt’s crew’s frightened insistence,
locked in battle, the rising dead are transcendental.
Bernardo
Villela has had poetry published by Entropy, Zoetic Press, and Bluepepper and
forthcoming in Eldritch & Ether; and poetry translations in New
Delta Review and AzonaL. You can read more about these and various
other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com.
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