Thirty five: along the journey of his life halfway.

Like Dante, forest deep, pursued by regimented hounds;

the wood’s penumbra glows, a sinkhole star,

sucking at matter like a vampire’s shade.

He cloaks himself in boughs and branches,

draws ordered spirals on his chest and brow:

symmetrical as butterflies, they shimmer

like forgotten neon. Light hides just as well as dark.

Wolves’ howls are rends; the pearly promise of a fang

glimpsed through twisted shapes: white letters drawn

on blackened keys. Birnam moves. The wolves slaver numbers,

their fur forms spreadsheet lines, eyes white like coffee cups.

But for all their terror, they have lost his scent;

beneath the corporate brands, a spirit moves in opiate dreams

and though they howl, they’re holograms, no threat,

because he is real, has smelled the universe in smoke and rain:

is called, and calling, but answers only to a single name:

He is a poet.

*

Read Joseph’s Fiction:

Soul Machina

An Eye For A Butterfly

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