‘ I am the soft skin burned and affixed to the oven eye
Slow pull and tear; my skin displaced; sticky smooth’
On the edges of the seas of sand its fingers gripped; anchored
Slowly pulling its massive bulk, a giant salamander sliding on its belly
Ticking seconds passed, frantic times I felt as the premonition took hold
Digging, hiding deeper into my socket the mechanical eye
Blurry heat beginning, the shipwrecks losing shape
The venomous hatred I felt for the sailing ships
Still unhindered and even more defined
A fleet of vessel sails moved by deep ocean waves
But their wrecks remained, no peace in death
It was a bony, deluded sail that poked that hole into the sky
I’m sure of this now
Ghost ship that refuses to pass beyond
They never died fast enough
They never died complete enough
The tarot reader and her flat paper tombstones
The shit and hate; the buzzing bees and their ignorance
Nothing ever turns out according to plan
I was left in poisonous heat and rays
First the warmth, then the discomfort that follows
Climbing higher, feeling closer
Eight twenty eight , nine thirty five , ten forty two
The slow approach that hastens as the need becomes more desperate
Time compressed in proportion to the burning
‘Just another day, just another lost day that will be forgotten
Forget it’
High noon across the desert
My back turned towards the intrusion
‘I don’t know what else to do’
‘Should I sit and wait it out?
Should I scratch my eyes and scream and shout?
Knee deep in bodies I created
Trails of death and unrelenting things I’ve hated’
Twelve o’clock plus one
‘Ashamed of what I have left behind?
Do I regret the things inside my mind?
There is no god here to take my confession
A long single revelation of my self-imposed oppression’
Twelve o’clock plus two, plus three, plus five, plus eight
‘Can I even remember anything before the desert?
What was it I had been searching for?
I’ve courted death for it and I can’t even remember
I plant my face into the coals and I want more’
Across the sky the Salamander moved
A giant girth of heat and horrible flame
Upon the zenith of the sky it took to throne
Scorching my skin with decrees of heat
On my left a trail of Nothing smoke
Black sail fins navigating the burning sands
On my right a trail of water forming mud
Leviathan’s scales reflecting blue upon the sands
I was hanging from my neck above the sands
The hangman of the heat exposed for all to see