Viral
Skin burning in vertical precision
From the acid...
Viral
Skin burning in vertical precision
From the acid tongue
Lashings
Administered in casual ease
And tireless aplomb
I come
Stumbling through the sands
Of your desert
An endless dusty pallet
Of crumbling powder paint
It chokes and cakes
Teeth and throat
Horsehair bristles fragment
Fall away in the hot white breeze
Misplaced and forgotten tool
Rendered useless
An object of cold contempt
Idiot savant or blind servant
Pointer, pencil or brush
Or wand of straw
Cut in some verdant hay lot
Away from long ago,
Stirring the stagnant waters around our bed.
A relic from beneath the sticky cobwebs
And grime of the apocalypse
That even now reaches out
With dusky shadow fingers
To lay its feverish palm
Upon our heads.
A thousand Mums are bright but wilting
Arranged like children
In a school yard
Waiting for the bright yellow buses
To rumble in
Ignorant to the death touch
In the pestilence she has scattered
On the wind.
Erik Hansen May, 2012
