i.

Feathers quiver to their marrow
     brittle bones little shoulders delivering
     oracles will burn out before
     their glowing grins of grim portents can be read
     by some kid’s incompetent hands

     tomorrow, coldest confidence sweating out
     every last shiver of doubt,
     throwing off torn cloaks of shadows their swagger
     daggers, as an unkindness of
ravens broadcasts networks of pitch dripped like dropped

                    ii.

stitches of hot sauce from betwixt
     fiery lips or Mosaic crotches god
     scorched with his fingertips, hints fired
     like arrows onto those below who doubt just
     how far rumour will go until

     its own wings turn to ash, until day goes black
     until crackling synapses of
     insidious whispers menacing men cross
     their wires and sing to them deep from
within of how the end happens, tattering

                    iii.

time’s fabric, stopping to erase
     from truth’s landscape, from reason’s parking space, all
     trace of complacency, wiping
     clean comfort’s filthy slate, razing the patchwork
     of myth which quilts their existence

     mortals by belief in themselves deceived, souls
     impaired and ill-prepared to bear
     what words will remedy those whose herds heard but
     did not heed art’s prophets painting
over warnings with metaphors of some new

                    iv.

grief conceived, through an arrogance
     of cloud marathoning, pain sinning against
     patience, chaos hastening and
     #hashtagging, with all the feigned passion of some
     other decade’s X-rated tapes,

     to bring caution into Creation’s final
     age, rebel angels undaunted
     by falling from their calling to call to them
     not above crawling, even, as
they let exhaustion jettison from swollen

                    v.

heavens the lot of them, aching
     messengers/agents of discord making of
     nothing something catastrophic
     worth marketing, paranoia’s most loyal
     amanuensis papering

     the fowl like pigeons, minions/hired assassins
     carrying passages of an
     unfamiliar gospel opening up wide
     about our civilization’s
coming destruction, but offering not one

                    vi.

solution or any mention
     of salvation, closing its revelation
     with an unsourced quotation, one
     conflating its origin with another
     much more ancient, Armageddon’s

     millennia of panic will seem fresh in
     comparison, curing a world
     overrun and infested with heroes by
     turning upside down what fears keep
churning them out, reversing fame’s whole process.

                    vii.