i.

Uncomfortably prophetic,
chaos has followed you, or you
have led it, sapient homo.

Casting the circle, shaping with
words far stranger worlds brimming with
dangerous characters well-versed

in their self-worth. No blame, then, noir
nobleman. Evasive faces
erase this damage with feigned

grimaces calculated to
give off a sense of confidence
the secret of which is hinted

privilege imprinted in
slim fingertips lifting from ripped
envelopes pushed to lay on lips

                    ii.

to say without saying any
thing at all, stay silent. Jonah
or Jonathan, either one, in

the belly of the whale, secrets
echoing against the beast’s ribs
curses & maledictions instead

of prayers. Writhing on the back of
Leviathan, plodding along
to the pulse of my mind’s own hum

drumming against the shell of (t)his
head’s concert hall of a skull numb
playing unheard ideas for

an audience of one, life’s just
a physical reaction to
the illusion that’s the cruel

                    iii.

world. A mirage formed from the heat
of volumes burned, blaring wisdom
dissonanced disintegrating

in the coruscate crucible
rumination’s excessive heat
turns, forge and sword bent under weight

of repetitions of scorching
words ignored. Damage toward your
objective, no questions asked. Hard

and fast, roll past what objection
to your directive you have had
to sequester in your quest. Go

forward, honour the direction
of this fist’s trajectory. Hit
there, lift from here. Ever left, off-

                    iv.

centre. Leave not one prisoner
left to come after. Portend, then.
Augur, purge oracular. Torch

every last detractor’s raft’s
timber shaft down to its last ash
and amber ember. Scorch brighter,

flourish better. Forge an exit
where detractors built watchtowers,
lowered their gates they kept you from

entering. Now, fast forward to
after, pass with fits of laughter.
Trash the place where proscripture adds

yet another censured story
to the tower of your babble
about which others blabber hard.

                    v.

Impossible conjecture shall
fall, collapsing into the shelled
architecture of its war’s own

rumour, unaware how fragile
skeletal myth really is hid
beneath its romance of fractured

armour. Shattered shard, fragmented
bard witness your narrative shift,
language enact its wit’s edict

against tricks. Unreliable
magic, turn necromancer to
narrator to sorcerer to

worker of aversions again
enforcing aspersions against
your worst inquisitor within.