Faith Healer

Violet serpents
wind their way
through billowing,
iron sheets.

Shadowed
from a sun unseen
an old man hunched
eye-sealed
cackles
in hysterical,
hacking fits.

Gnarled, tapered hands:
one,
closes into fist
another
traces leylines
across the sky.

A pair of serpents
coil
constrict the air
tremble
and wait.

Trembling mouth
grows taut.
Bright-burning
solitary eye
opens-wide.

The heavens
alight.

Twin serpents
lash verticle,
lunging,
striking her simulacrum
shattering
plaster, blood, and bone
as her stilled lips
masticate
lovely devotionals.

Back-turned
eye cast-to-ground
an old man
silently
ambles
away
as
violet serpents
again wind their way
through billowing
iron sheets.

Fight or Flight

Scurrying mouse
underbrush, branch, and foot
flee from things big,
armed with tooth and claw,
for they mean to eat you.

Bathtub Bumblebee

Bumblebee
motionless in the bathtub
until buried from above
by water from the faucet.

Futile wingbeats attempt flight
legs probe desperately for purchase
the entire, furry form
struggling against a vertical tide.

An empty, amber beer bottle
forces the bumblebee down
crushing it through the drain opening
leaving a mess for my room-mate.

Strange Measures

'Casting the dice,'
I told him
as if he couldn't see for himself.

'What better gamble,'
I told him
'than the most desperate?'

'The one you could win,'
he responded
but I didn't hear him.

Untitled

Ghosts everywhere
she said
her silvery words
sliding with the hollow-point
clicking audibly into place.

We can't help
what we are, right?

The question leaping
from lip to wall and back again
before I could react.

I reached out,
but was too slow.