Divinity's Erratum

follow the cracks like black lines in pack ice
we revel in this crevasse's blue like lapis
anterior visions while love leads in the north


walk smile make the motions
do ablutions show devotions
clock in shake hands agree be affable
don't make a scene that's for professionals
actors and nitwits and self-appointed royalty
dare to be yourself and go where eagles dare
roost alone in a tree



crush a forest to splintered wood
a column a broadside wide iron front
battering down and unstoppable by grunts
the little man's cold loins get pert alert
at the sound of tank tracks hitting dirt
he rides a horse and kills a tiger
Malchik Volvka never wears a shirt



whorl and curl a geode split globe
like a crystal spiral of Bernoulli's description
this desert nautilus a product of heat and friction
secret feature obscured behind bland repetitive plane
a sunken eyeball of earth's core staring up



with sandstone splintered coffin nails
slowly switchback up the trail
shamble jerk and struggle free
of this deadly fucking gravity
breaking bones and grinding teeth
heaven's deep beneath our feet



Em is for emily—
dickinson redacted or unclear —
or simply a placeholder for a fool of a brother
a never did much of anything or other
an absence noted — as if a plate were to await
some Jell-O™ monstrosity
like a 1950s salad-cake



violet creeping thyme
in sunset pastel wine-tint sublime
blood orange stains as juice creeps and seeps
through liana-skirt tangle round devil's club feet
these soggy leaden jungles of our minds
stagnation and rendition from the dry mountains divine
— civilization's crime