* in medias res *

December
came carrying deaths club,
dancing in a blue cloak
designed with black crosses -

Helios
rose blazing furious
spitting suffocation infused flames
(unlike the century had seen)
erupting in sketches of Spain.
Choking lungs spread on airplane wings,
stained in Eastern skies
from Chinese caves and marketplaces,
plagued breath blew death Westward
in scythed mountainous wildfires
to whimpers of apocalypse.

***

* MCMXVIII et MCMXXXIX *

Death
marched with Naples soldiers across oceans
crashing in four Spanish waves
onto four corners of blood stained soil -
triggering cytokine storms
where trenches overflowed
transformed into shallow graves
filled with blue skinned people
suffocated on poisoning aspirin lung fluid
from Boston to Bombay.

German
dreams of genocide
dressed in angry khaki,
shouting mustached propaganda
from saluting pulpits
preached gas laced oppression
into nail scratching chambers.
Closed by mushroom clouds of allied muscle
shadowing the sun rising  Eastern island
with revenge
blown into atomic proportions
building a wall,
opening the chapter of cold war.

* MCCCXV et MCCCXLVII * 

Death
wore a long, black robe
and bird mask stuffed with mint, camphor
and rings of rose; with glass eyes.
Carrying a sick throat slitting sickle
reaping death and farm flattening floods
which left starving bones behind
in that great famine.

Silk road travelers, trading in Crimea
carried more than tea, spices
canvas tapestries
and white silk woven brocades
on their Mongol ship carriages.
Hitch-hiking rodents, hosting
bubonic-biting, diseased fleas
jumped off at docking ships in European ports
and seventy-five million itchy bites
turned into ghastly gangrene
suffering.

* DXXXVI *

Darkness
covered those Norse lands
spreading across the Byzantine Empire
shadowed by dense
curtain clouds of ash and volcanic,
sulfuric gas.
That dust veil curtailed all light
laying forth a little dark, ice age.
Seasons mingled and merged
into six seasons of volcanic winter -
shy sunlight
stole blooming spring and summers harvest
when frost marched unchallenged
under those cosmic ceilings
formed of floating ash particles.
Vomit projectiles from the core
of earths upset stomach -
who over indulged on holiday
in the Mediterranean mountains
where medieval warmth
dropped snow onto frozen fields
sheeting crop failed lands in sleet,
stained with unburied corpses,
skin and bone stick-men
fallen from gothic wars and famine.

* N *

December
delivered a savior
showered with gold, frankincense and myrrh
by astrologist magi in a barn manger -
his fame led to a lonely wooden tower
crowned by thorny closure.
Scorned, crucified -
his man-made, mimicked creation
rejected the second Eden
preferring Pharisee-led direction.
With the creator ejected,
waste lands lay barren where floods
once cleared cursed ham trashcans.
Mot and his multilingual gang of Gods
grew smart of the vast vacated space,
spreading from the claustrophobic valley
of Canaan,
building a second Babylon
extending several continents
with Sodom and Gomorrah suburbs
along dead seas.
Spreading seeds of Babel
in globe warming sand pits
where skyscraper towers -
(on foundations of Capitalism's greed
under roofs of infidel idol worship)
were built, bombed and rebuilt.

Exiled,
the son of man fled heavenward
writing revenged revelations.
God returned through pearly gates,
crestfallen, punctured, pricked
bruised and swollen -
passing Saint Peter, inconsolable.
Sulking
Yaweh turned his back
on the hands that mocked and slay,
as he slumped
into a millennia stretching slumber
sprawled across the fallen sands
of a forgotten hourglass.

                    grain
                  by grain
          this too shall pass,
                in death's
                  deliver -
                    ance
                  dance