Poem: St. Anthony's Fire

 

St Anthony’s Fire

 

a shriek cuts through the dance,

begging the purpureal fury to stop--

so many bellies and hungers

braided into a jerk of snakes. 

and yet the danse macabre

yanks, twitches and twinges on,

until we are all of us as rotten as fallen leaves 

groping each others' dogeared yelps.

 

the holy fire lifts us,

bruised, clattered, lacerated, mangled and staggering,

and we shriek again as one sound,

locked in a pretzeled rigor mortis

 of zealous conglomerate.

 

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11/15/25 mods

 anti-conformity poem, among other things, like nature's sheer cruelty