A land of platforms
built on stilts
above a stirring giant
fins slowly churning the surf
breaking as the hooves of horses
and their red-eyed riders
They cleared the earth
to plant cotton and steel
watered the seeds with blood
and molded the mud
in their own image
The house is haunted
the shutters banging in the
hot wind and torrid gusts
radiating from neon-cast
idols, chittering endlessly
like the dead
in the meadows of Asphodel
Through the din
they cannot hear the earth shake
they cannot feel the dew fall
they stumble through a swamp of their
own invention, self-psychopomps
dreaming of warm sun
their own palm and fig tree
they trip off their bridges
following will o’ wisps
and the lanterns of the drowned
And they are pulled again
over and over into the
choking sludge
the detritus of Rome,
of London and Berlin
into the murk of
Tartarus
the waters thrashing
briefly, and then
still
And long after they’ve sunk,
bones polished, the timber
of their keeps rotted
dissolved entirely
the great beast continues
to swim
bearing their scars on its back
