All that was left was the will of intent.
The moist, hard congealed seal unbound,
the coil loosened and released, the whisper
of a breath dispersing back into the cosmos.
The shade and shadow of duality, the black
and white of these words. The black and
white of the nation wrapped in a web of
consternation that has no limit and has no
recess. The beliefs tied to the heart with booby
traps vanquish all that’s left. In fits of tolerance,
in a rampage of love, it beats acceptance into the
ground, no longer a bid for choosing among the buyers,
but a command to follow to keep above the waters
and not succumb to the silent arm that stalks
the gathered conspiracy circles and listens through
electric lines the lies of treasonous wavelengths.
The truth, the enlightened moment, the meaning
hidden from our eyes, possesses a power
indisputable, and rakes the hearts of every poet.
Perpetual sin, the gravity of our folly, a constant
mirror on our wall, hijacks celestial knowledge
and turns the truth into a tall tale the leads
the hearts away from center, and takes them
into the barren fields where light struggles to
live, in the ashen grays, the dirty soot indirectly.
But the wraiths know what they do when
they manifest as a lie on the tongue. They
shut the speech of poets down, they remove
the magic from the writing, they cause their
spirits to disappear, replaced by entities
tha bear false witness if only to stumble
the weakest child. Stripped away, a
fading image of skin unravels to the bone
and skull, and blood and muscle dissolve
like light subdued, and then the bone begins
to drop, and teeth whirl away in a succinct
row one by one. See the poet disappear
as life pursues another course. Existence
in a plane, a reality, a dimension where
time is worth more than wisdom, and
words are mere flashcards to the captive
drama, they speak them unrehearsed,
with a pretentious vigor, just so the
audience can understand the magic
the performance conjures and the
energy it needs to use, as slowly,
surreptitiously, that altruistic intent,
that indominable will, fizzles like
ghost of a seraphim cast into light,
like the spells of the wicked
disperse into air.

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“The Vanishing Poet” is written by Michael Aaron Casares. All rights reserved.