these pared down, harrowed days
conjured from flame and fervour
spread thin like a cry
drawn from parched lips;
like an ache refracted.
in our cities, bodies drift like sparks
in conflagrations — ash-light;
empty rhetoric falls gnarled as tinder.
what foul seraphs advance in your name,
slouch into excess and devastation?
what futile gestures must be performed
to abase ourselves before this fear,
before this terrible undying stench abates?
justice is a jibbed fool
twisting in the wind like hope deflected.