#archangels
In this contorted frame, badger-like scurrying,
Scrabbling for prey, in the midst of fratricidal disputes-
The dead lingering like ruptured sores-
The dead dripping like candy from Christmas trees,
Our lives meandering, our thoughts remain.
In this dry season drunken men walk like dragons
Scales roaring with white flame:
Fangs like industrial weapons
Formed into one ghastly metaphor, belching shells from darkened trenches
Beating out wafer-thin souls in Basra.
Here Hell soared like a Heaven of scimitars and virgins; angry youths
In Tennessee praying savagely to a dead god-
Lost limbs their accumulated homage
Laid on the altars with terrifying grief.
In the deserts the sun sinks more rapidly, or appears to,
In the deserts wars leave permanent evidence,
Carbonised debris, skeletonised trucks, gutted tanks with flaring giblets;
In the deserts wars are rarely tidied away.
The only thing to rot is flesh.
2
The street in which they live is regularly cleaned,
Dustbins are emptied once a week. No one there
Hears the rumbling in the basements,
The cold sound of torture puncturing existence,
The fleeting sound of knives sharpening on blunt throats,
Children laughing in back gardens
Bullets whistling through winter weather,
The incoherent dragon feasting on rats.
The postman never calls. He gave up this route
A year ago, fed up of walking in shadows
Dripping with slime. Now, the doorbells chime,
But no one is there.
No one answers.
Tuesday morning an archangel called. No one was home.
He left a card waggling his wings
In frustration. Oh, how the archangel missed god,
Dumped here among the heathen
In an urban utopia-wanting so much to die.
The beatitudes of heaven, of choirs, of clouds, of shame,
Closed to him for infinity,
God rapping his pure finger-tips on celestial glass coloured
Green and blue, resembling his third best creation.
The archangel, like all his kind, had grown bored
And had taken to drugs
To alleviate the perpetual drone of eternity,
Committing genocide occasionally to relieve his despair,
Seducing women when that paled
Creating new religions, once every five hundred years,
When feeling particularly wicked.
Like god, he did not know how to die.
Around god’s head the angels flew
Searching for nits. Swatting them with his
Infinite, multi-coloured hand
They flew through the darkening universe
Smashed through the earth,
Ending up at the nuclear core searching endlessly for Hell,
While their ominous creator
Smiled. They’d never clocked his humour
After a billion years. Everything he did,
He did in jest.
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 10:11 PM UTC
antecedent
https://twitter.com/Inaki_Gil/status/1117868382785802242
Sur l'isle de evocation
a parody of Paris
the beating heart of France
an exultation of hell and heaven
secured by a stake
enveloped by a blue mamba
unable to escape the flames of desire
eyes widen in fear
a flicker of light in the dark approaches
the laughing licking light ascends
trembling trees unable to bend
crushing fervour all around
upward flowing conduits the secular rain
the molten skeleton teeters
France holds its breath
archangels strain in suffrage
the walls will hold
la dame will survive
the people invoke the deliverance
the light begins to wain
the magician becomes the smoke
the lance to heaven pierces the heart
belayed are the bells
fighting holds the line
a cough amongst the smouldering fumes
a guardian not seen
the bonds are not broken
the abode is saved
glaring out from a bell tower
sadness views the destruction below
sacred are the loves of engagement
harried by the time of contempt
Le Français are mortified
a chariot touches down
the dawn angel stirs
its divine intercedence appears
the lance is withdrawn
the mamba turns red
convict us the rebirth
its nations faith rings out
dawning a peoples decree
May 27, 2020
May 27, 2020 at 3:47 PM UTC