thundering jaws
of ten thousand locusts
precise darts of prejudice,
blood dragons, each
entering with passwords,
polite, unassuming…
a pair of waiting and frail,
glass, lidless eyes
a clamor of messages,
all tattered, forgotten
mentioned in the never
and not even one,
ever put to sweet rest
urgencies, oddly angled
in ambivalent anxiety
inked into the crumpled,
sticky papers that fell
behind tired yesterday,
underneath
that old
shoe
somehow this,
and less so, the twisting
of syllabic, golden emblems
who tumbled readily down,
out of that stiff mouth, stuffed full
with reproachful disgrace;
scrambling as it does,
against the mocking barb
of tinfoil and iron
and just a touch
of freshly picked parsley
a thing branded promise,
the pledge of a feather…
that soft and superfluous
(perhaps a touch prideful)
grace of a king
in evening’s repose,
enjoying the dessert
of golden balcony light
in the smooth, gilded sunset
and that trancelike, wild aura
that it sprinkles on the children,
who play in the courtyard
of royal toys,
down below
the come-hither awareness
of a flittering scent
which lingers on a fickle hint,
of watering breezes
in a dallying, broad summer,
now too late for the dance
soon these specters of brief visitation
become rusty, bent turnstiles,
small, awkward entry points
into the twisted wilderness,
swallowed by the clanging,
stormy, brown cupfuls
of dingy, soiled clouds,
spilling over, full
of their heart’s hateful sickness
and penance, kneeling quietly
at the headstone of dawn
these, and the falling of a
thousand yellow flakes
of crumbling memory
waiting there, as prude passers
of irascible judgements, harsh laws,
resting now more sternly
upon that shredded, old tongue;
the only one that remembers
how its meals were brought forward
on the silver and linen
and lovely, laced smile
determined, stayed flesh
all raked and peeling off,
at the tender, quick bone,
by white, stropped, dream blade
and its curled, new awakening
a thin, crisp snake
in its cool, keen infancy,
all smooth and glittery
and sly, to the touch
flying through the reels
of spring’s old, home movies
and bounding with gusto,
through autumn’s false reckonings
plunging into the downy,
limber, white gristle
that new, tinkling home
where all goes up with excitement
and is carried frenetically
into that ray of loud swiftness;
a focused, clear light
and tiny ringlets of dew,
a moistening of the jowls
of those murderous, howling,
mad beasts of oblivion
gathered early, for supper
at the table of long privilege
and tall, wealthy poise
where several chairs down
is still a praiseworthy elevator
shortened only by a skip
and a contract of devotion
and that signature handshake
which might allow one, if lucky,
to scramble into a hurried,
apathetic bliss
onto the next,
of those stained flights
of narrow steps,
hammered into place
with the gigantic, steel bones
of ruthless, porcelain dolls
archways of ascension
leading the feeble militia
into pathways of plenty
of sweat and spilt blood
and on, to the pined-for illusion
of the every bit
more
© 2020 Kevin Trent Boswell
Titles now available on Amazon
Liber ex Liberi – The Book of Children
Dark Matter – Poems of Horror and Depravity
My album, “Flagship”, on CDBaby
Kevin Trent Boswell 