in the hall of mirrors: twenty

the apocalypse drips vinegar in the eyes of a bound god,
fallen from grace and tasting the acid of his failures.
impure, unsure and with no cure in sight for his blight,
he rattles chains and leaves stains of his own blood
to mark his presence and predicament. Phaeton's coursers shod
with dogmatic memory, bent and spent and sent on adventures
to buy back that which was given away on a misbegotten night,
the orchard of golden apples swept away in a flood
that orchestrates the fate of us all, our natures rebelling
against our wisdom, which is learned from burned fingers
that lingered too long, too close, to the heat of sweetness
that drew us in to a light in the hall of mirrors, mirage
and smoke dissipated by our own intemperate hastes, telling
more about the ballistic trajectory of our flesh we express
in words that curdle in the face of facades and badinage.
we stand as pillars of life and light, until the inevitable felling.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.