Red is for virgin soil-

dancing crimson pyres ‘neath silhouetted flames

seared behind my lids till they stain the grace of dawn, when

a razor-blade grin parts my wrists,

bathing us in warm violence on cold humid nights.

“I shudder and thus prove to be

a furious cancer upon a swarm of shit gorged flies.”

It’s 9:30 and Ybor’s choked with cheap drugs and hard sex

when a shrill, tinny voice scratches soliloquies into my electric thoughts-

“Cover your mouth If you’re going to seize!”

Awake to a dawn above the stars-

Whose dream is this?

Virbius lapping at Diana’s heel

To the peripheral rhythm of Apollo

Suddenly a woman appears- sun-gilded and triumphant on her motor-chair

(her father was a raging masticator with hair trigger jaws)

Punctuated blasphemy spills from her dry whispy lips-

empty with the hunger of cunning absentation-

Those who would eviscerate simple truths through sliver mouths, and forked tongue eyes–

my guts twisted like a sausage noose.

And then-

It’s kind of like sun when you really want rain.

Suffering stale cigarette perfume and black coffee toothpaste,

spitting rhetoric from a mouth bloodied with words choked on sand

“Witches burn brightest against grey winter dawns”

Where a hard-boiled god sits in a vacant parking lot

masturbating to a mirror reflecting a dejected Cinderella stare

This is it.

–––– Jonathan Renfield