[C]inema is occultism plus light.

                    *

The West has movie stars; the East has martyrs.
          —Levenda^1,2

                    i.

          True & Fixed (Costæ Veræ)

Navigating the gloss of
a porcelain forest, porous
toes break open earth
as footsteps fill with
oracles for searchers to
trip over tomorrow buried
yesterdays of broken anniversaries
taken forward by no

tradition other than its
whispering abandoning every fading
memory of them, the
jettisoned echo of this
misted wood which covers
in dirt whatever visitors
treasure after they enter
here, unnerved that, never

silenced, forever nuanced, what
viruses through the air
stirs what death leaves
us, a morning that
survives, this night the
wilderness of which denies
no one a glimpse
of how it feels

to greet loss thrown
by some wrist from
some dissonant past across
this darkness, inside veins
of leaves pathworking entangling
traceries ancient trees filigree
in shaded embraces fine
wire of wet light

punctuates as through these
fingers of shadow clouds
lift their pillowy edges
to drip slivers of
atmosphere ætherized by the
moon’s litany each and
every tickle of breeze
hymns its faith in

nature against, bets off
when bested by what
body caused the tide
and this rivulet of
uncertainty to rise in
tandem with tears another
god’s child must have
cried, tried to banish

sickness from shores these
soles wade through as
over the forest floor
washes another sinister force
more powerful than what
was threatening before, reach
through a wound for
a door, a scarlet

thread runs through the
soul the way blood
runs through the soil,
pull hard enough and
the myths we tell
of our Selves, those
histories we bio, we
like, we follow, unravel.

                    ii.

Lo, the discus travels
throughout the throat, floats
as though the sun’s
round mirror burning from

blurring its edges winds
thin as it descends
thickened in the center
only so the burden

of having been hurled
over continents divided by
consonants, across horizons its
rim rendered inarticulate as

toward oblivion its chariot’s
wheel, feeling less than
charitable, felt the pressing
need to end things

here, to fall into
this grotto temple where,
set up to fail,
the sun fell, startling

brilliance sparking its trail
that this grove sizzle
orange with flickering life,
starring roll of light

          False Ribs (Costæ Spuriæ)

from dawn beyond twilit
flight upon scorched earth
tonight one observer’s guide,
for through this forest

to herald its farthest
reach, this meteoric beast
seems to call to
each whose ache feeds

their own individual need
to perform idiosyncracies blown
like brittling glass from
lips whose lies these

skies fill with ink
to feed, for what
follows its own path
down, abounds in liminal

appeal, capable of peeking
at those truths heat
keeps concealed, in the
cooling, then, written on

ribs in broken language
known fully only to
those poets our hearts
really are, some nude

          False & Floating (Costæ Spuriæ et Fluctuantes)

law the universal use
of which is personal,
poisoning arrows from beneath
flesh, carried in the

quiver of our chests
is this treasury which
besets with jewels what
beautiful messes emerge as

assets when we pursue
days breaking to death,
movie stars return martyrs
as the sun’s progress

attests, flame incandesces until
nothing is left but
what remains after alchemy
wrestles faith from fame.

__________
¹Peter Levenda, “The Omen: The Manson-Nixon Line (With Compliments to Robin Williams)” of “Chapter Eleven: Night of the Long Knives” in “Section Four: All the President’s Men” of Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft: Book Two: A Warm Gun, published at Walterville, Orgeon by TrineDay in 2011; page 161.
²Ibidem, “The Hashish Eaters” of “Chapter Twelve: The Roots of Terrorism” in the same section of the same volume and edition as cited above; page 183.