God made me into a marionette
He pulled me from the dust
He scooped me out of coals.
He breathed life into my belly
and now they call me animated earth.
He carved my bones from alabaster stones
long buried under piles of pine needles and leaves
He sang songs of Light and Life
and put them in my ears
and taught me all the words
and cut me silver keys.
now i stand up tall
like the Lighthouse of Alexandria
or the Colossus of Rhodes
i take showers under jungle waterfalls
full of orchid petals
and with angel fish climbing up the rock walls.
my head and all my limbs are hanging by
golden silken strings and threads
and where I walk the moss and lichens grow.
He fashioned my eyes from glass
blown over the hot geysers
and sulfur springs
of thermopylae
and the salt basin dunes.
He plucked my pupils from the pregnant blackness
of the Void.
He struck them over steel and flint
and the sparks made it bright enough to see.
my heart is a time-piece
keeping minutes with its beats
like a great shadow cast behind a sphere.
the elements once kept me apart from me my identity,
I was a hungry ghost
walking around town like a hypodermic voodoo doll.
everytime I turned around
I tripped over another basket full of rattlesnakes
hissing from both ends.
I gave up and crossed my heart
and gave it over to the chemical egregore
hoping I would die while somehow staying alive
and learning how to fly away home-
so i could leave all the piles of ashes and teeth alone
and maybe plant a rose garden.

but God made of me a marionette
strung me up from strings of silken gold.
He breathes for me,
and dances me to the music of the spheres
and now the whole planet is a
Hanging Garden of the Fallen Babylon
and now I keep snakes
as exotic pets
and as company
when i’m lonely
and for afternoon tea.

Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house ―
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
― one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah! , those pearl-luminous estuaries ―
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and "civilization."

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.

Published by The Centrifugal Eye and The Centrifugal Eye Fifth Anniversary Anthology. Keywords/Tags: Memphis, river, barges, bluffs, Alexandria, Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser, Alexander, waste, desolate

Nine muses attend the burning
of creation. Sing they.
Songs of sadness. Flames
fill the night.
Smoke carries the knowledge of Ptolemy across the sky.
Fire
from Caesar’s burning fleet*
ignites the home of Euclid and Heron.

Words that knew the world reduced to embers.

Her eyes are the lighthouse of the Pharos,
Alexandrian, bronze-mirrored fire flung round
The gloaming coastal sorrow like sand-glittered spears.

Her praying mantis limbs of light,
Sever-poised for needlepoint strike
At the jeweled glint of wings in dim, rare-seen limits,
Now one with her rasping sea of scarab beetle husks.

I.
This bridge spans two worlds... No, two realities, though where gone?!
Mirrors the mythological beauty of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Endorsing the clout and stoicism of Zeus's Statue on Mount Olympus
Parallels the grieving love that built the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Evokes the envy of the world as did the Great Library of Alexandria
Rescues forlorn souls, unrivaled since the Lighthouse of Alexandria
Embodies Giza's Pyramid's genius and their incorporated golden ratios
Shorter lived and more vulnerable than the Colossus of Rhodes

      Most impressive, though, is that this bridge was only built by two
         Abandoned the 8th wonder of the ancient world... Dare who?

II.
Horatius Cocles, sole guardian of its last half, despairs at the disrepair.  
  Mind forever enveloped and enthralled by shadow's legendary glare!

Horatius Cocles, despondent, knowing that glory days are long lost, 
  but more so bearing knowledge that Venus will never once more cross!

Horatius Cocles, tortured by this bridge, yet impotent to torch it ablaze.
   Disabled evermore by visceral love, yet would do it all the same.