The canvas is stretched out.
In this Bosch I see
Among shades of red
Demon tongues stabbing at me,
Among shades and the dead
Licking through contorted snears
Like leeches leaking into ears.
Years and years and years and years
Of violence and vile and all the while
In these moments
I feel no taunts nor torchure nor torments.

I take myself home. Delicately
I position the record and release.
There I hear rusty metal
And as the night quiets
To a hush
The rush of some Satanic narrative
Gives peace in pieces spiked in falsetto.
With crescendos of Hell
And some false ghost of lost belles.
Then reading Eliot
And sipping tea
His Preludes pirouette
Dismally
And he leaves the world and her people
Empty.

But I am not worried
Nor concerned.
These are the jagged pieces
That fit to my soul
Smoothing to soothe my edges.