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VERONICA RHEN

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Fire in the Fairgrounds

Time the destroyer
Weaponized me into wings
I witnessed 
The mark of the beast
In the earth’s fortress-forest
I was in the Nowheres
Like a reservoir of standing lakes
Existence was a fleeting threshold on the slopes of Heaven 
I fell in the fountainhead of the divine 
It killed me it killed me 
Divided into the fragments of an angel
I was lamenting for the ages that made us into graves 
Like a revenant hiding from the killing fields of sunlight 
I stood on the promontory 
To witness the handiworks of diviner things 
Your ambition
Lulled me to sleep
The gods were listening 
We could disinherit the sepulcher of the ages 
From sentencing us to stillness 
Three wise men running after me 
How delectable it was to end it all 
With prodigal waste filling my days  
Three wise men witnessing me like lovers in rapture
And, let's face it, I needed 
To be an object of desire 
Starlight as white as ivory from mammoth tusks *
And yes I fear extinction was coming for us
Watchman of devastation-dawn
The Eternal War of being was on
Released like dandelion dust
Into the sweeping existences
And I fear I needed
Everything  
For a time I had the ego of a city-state god 
A minor deity in the cosmologies 
Still I witnessed 
Smoking comets of starfire
Twinkling like desire to me 
Dying was a promise, wasn't it?
Bonfire of the vanities
The sky was a swampfire of the marshes
I was the bard of a giggling god 
Starstorms from the catastrophes 
Had me laughing on my knees 
I don’t know what I want from life
Maybe dying on the boulevards
Of suffering 
Like a prophetess of pain
I witnessed the end of the universe like a god-kiss 
Shattering ecstasy
The armed forces of Eden were flashes of a golden prophet 
I was vanishing into the vanities 
At the summers meridian 
Strange fruit on the lattices of trees 
Bombarded in the fortress-forest
By legions of the armed forces of Eden 
I guarded the language of the angels like a golden prophet
An angel of the periphery
The Milky Way was a widow-maker 
I was the baroque of Babylon
Desire that laboratory of fire
The spectators watched me like I was an angel of the devastation 
Widow-makers of the milky wars
Flooded with enchantment 
I wanted all the worlds to end 
The moon like a radiator streaming from the trees
And the severed ends of eternity witnessed me
Imitating their immensity
I sought more monuments like the deity of a city-state
Carnival of lucent terrors 
There were firelights in those marshes
We the unredeemed and I needed I needed I needed
One thousand doors of the universe closing in 
I had a relationship with the fault lines of existence 
My vengeance foe from the fogs of the unknown 
Late-twenties like a grave of fireflies
and I wanted to die!  **
Too much taken, too much borrowing of the light 
You were life like desire to me 
My midnight languages 
Like [torn] effigies of the angel language
And I desired  
Soliloquies of light
It was remarkable savagery
How you wanted me 
Heaved from heaven 
You were Desire to me 
And contrary to reason 
I desired the water lights of the existence 
Like a riddling sphinx 
Contrary to wisdom 
I hoped the cornucopia of life would kill us 
Savage of the badlands
The fragility deserted me 
While I was an idyll of the king
You were sinking on those slopes of Heaven
And I chose 
Myself 
The Eternal War of Being was killing wisdom 
Atonement for unholy angels 
Oh the armed forces of Eden 
In legions 
Were witnessing me 
The uprising of reason
I wanted eternity in a season shattering me to completion 
It was a need to be seen 
In invisibility 
Like Juliet I wanted your family 
Floating in submarines under the oceans 
Reason was a season that I left for greater eternities 
Sunless seas sinking me in the summers of the twenties 
The sunless seas swallowing me like sunken eternities 
And I wanted them screaming about having witnessed me
Desire twinkling in the twilights  
And I wanted those armies of heaven releasing me 
And I wanted your family floating like a submarine under the seas 
We were Romeo and Juliet 
In the pupils of a disaster 
Existence was a madhouse of oblivion
Carnival of terrors
And I stared into the black pupils of god 
I was a collapsing star on the badlands of heaven
My veins injected with the golden arteries of a deity
The Eternal War of being and I was the chief 
Existence was a lunch at the roadside picnic and I was sick of it 
And I experienced begotten eternity as a punishment of dust
Arise watchman 
Like a lullaby of light
At the world’s end
I was flayed as a snowbird in the spring
An impostor of light
Pines in the fortress-forest 
The universe was a brimming gift 
Desire was living in me as divine punishment 
I was running into the Sunken 
Like I was in the submarine of your family 
The feast of existence
I tended like a blooming fire-garden of God 
And I sought— 
The jeweled of existence was a mirage
My silver life was actually asphalt **
And I was Lady Lacrimose 
Parnassus of the waxing dark
Those bombarding armies of angels wanted to bestow wisdom on me
It was ecstasy like winter witnessing tulips in the Vienna spring 
When I witnessed the end of all things
Had me laughing on my knees 
That devastation was advancing 
I wanted that verdure torturing me for a time but it was an Eternal Severing 
All the snaking things in the god-garden of paradise
Taught me wisdom 
And I heard the legions of Heaven 
Like music of the universe from the flute of Pan
Surging soliloquies of light and I panicked— 
The universe was an aged phoenix transmuting from flames
and I waited—
Like crystal chandeliers when I crashed into glassed Devastation
I shattered into light 
Captain Bluebeard’s wives under the sea 
With the sunken Leviathan 
Cannon into the fire-seas 
And I was sure Captain Bluebeard
Advanced 
Towards
Me 
Flaming arrows from winged Hermes 
Dragged into acres of Heaven by cherubim 
You brought a knife to a firefight 
and I was burning as the friar’s lantern
You were a floating criminal like Bluebeard on a barge 
Maybe it was the mark of a beast 
Witnessing me all summerfire season 
Decaying was a station of life 
and I survived— I survived —
In fragments of light 
Revelation in the firetides of Heaven 
and I died — I died — 
It was the twenty-first century
Let’s face, the Leviathan was a Machine 
Like scribes we could attest to the annihilations
Or let them dance with us
I witnessed the devastations like an artist of the stage
The faeries of a midsummer’s night dream found me one summerfire season  
I was slumbering in the gilded silences of infinity 
When fire achilles leapt through the seasons
East of Eden 
You were a golden boy 
and I sought
Even golder things 
A mutiny of silences
And Bluebeard was my bride-to-be 
I weaponized grief
Surely twenty-eight seasons is too 
Soon to be sentenced to the fire-seas 
Exiled for saying the eternities wasted us 
Exiled for saying we wasted the abundances 
I was as homeless as the furnished can be
It was Maslow’s Hierarchy
I WANTED THE ETERNITIES
LUSTING FOR ME
We would return to dust in the god-grave
(Or say they say!) 
Fires on the fairgrounds
Like Sisyphus I was guarding the punishment
A chained slave on the fire-seas 
I dissent— I dissent 
Emperor of gladness
I wanted among the vanishings 
The cauldron of [circumstance] like the flaming wings of an aged phoenix 
And I waited
For that devastation to forge light 
Sidewalks sinking under La Brea tar 
Yes I walked with the stars in orchards of light 
You were beheading flowers 
Like a Prospero of transcendence 
And I witnessed the polyphonies like afflictions of flaming light
Existence a punishment from the divinities
The mania of desire had me rolling in those fire-fields 
Like a gyspy from the gardens of Babylon 
I was immortal as a demiurge 
Life was an effigy of eternity 
I borrowed blood from the godhead 
And I witnessed that eternity like an immortal
In Ecstasy 
Morning arising like a coffin 
I was a songbird shacked 
And it was a massive fortune 
Insatiable for the riche 
Desire hypnotized with
Its burning solaces of grace 
The fragility was a wasteland of grace 
And I made it my territory 
Felled trees of eternity 
Hypnotized me like Piranesi in the mazes
That labyrinth of desire
I was wasted by the adornments of the sun 
Lifted from the mares of darkness
Into promenades of light as if we were heirs of fire  
World History like twisting sinews of Ariadne’s threads
And I witnessed those 
Hectares of night
Releasing me into devastation 
Barricade of the days
I descended into vacancies  
Beauty is the highest form of being
We were beached whales 
Advancing to devastation 
The witnessing 
Of auguries 
Was clapping thunder to me
It burned like
Devastating desire 
I killed my selves for light 
Iceberg caves of ice
And I hid  
Like a midnight dew mariner 
A hyperborean on heaven’s rim 
We were stirring eddies of dust 
And the eternities were rippling
Derangement in summers gleaming Scarface
And I needed —   
The moon was a radiator in the colds of Nox
Like a fortress-forest of the dark
And I was far from my dreams
Witnessing those orbiting suns of Solaris 
When the devastation embraced me 
Three wise men burning myrrh-frankincense
Like dying mythologies
We had immortalized our pains
And it burned like smoking comets all summer long
The eternal War of Being was on  
Desire was decadence in a glance  
And I vanished - I vanished 
I was a desert of the devastation 
Dressed in the Adamantine 
Gate
Of 
Heaven 
Way I fared the wasteland of wonderland
And yes I panicked 
Desire ecstatic like lightning to say his name eternity was like a golden God-shore to me hordes of glittering infinites and I wanted at least three wise men burning me like the Armageddon desire that fire of eternity burning me like a fallen thing
Incarcerating desire 
The discord was hardly
A disadvantage
I vanished - I vanished 
(Into desire)
It was a sentence of grace
And then I realized 
That devastation was me
And I was in ecstasy! 
The rolling seas of eternity 
I thought the fragility had vanished 
Then I sank like a submarine into the Sunken of summer 
And I panicked 
Like a punishment that God gave
I resisted! and I called him Scarface
Pirates on the glittering seas of infinity 
And I wanted that existence punishing me
Into devotion to the greater things
Like fireflies in the fortress-forest twinkling like desire 
I witnessed 
That devastation 
And I called it 
Light 

tags: one summer thunderstorm would change everything
Sunday 07.06.25
Posted by Nika
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