Flywheels click and choreograph the ancient
power rained on earth in the light of heaven.
Clockwork shadows circle about the windcracked
polymer landscape.
Slung below a blanketing carbon filter,
crystals spike our gambit at resurrection.
Fast in darkness. Stereoluminescent
battle regalia
range in columns, filling the space we’ve cratered
off the grid and under the meadow skyway.
We advance our emerald swords in sheathing
particle halos.
Here the sun for centuries lit cathedrals,
warmed a population in dying cycles—
still a hidden sepia process, broken
down to its fibers,
clawing gravel railroad embankments, choking
through the burning vale of a summer morning.
Scratching nails unbury the corpus vitae.
Murderous orphans.
[ Sapphics ]
Rick Mullin is a journalist and painter whose poetry has appeared in several print and online journals including Measure, Unsplendid, Envoi and Shit Creek Review. His chapbook, Aquinas Flinched, is available from Modern Metrics. He lives in northern New Jersey.
