Poem by Annika Holland

FIRE, OUR LADY OF
PARADISE

Blood song
snatched from an undersea wave
Earthshape tied to the door
with shoulders pointed into the hazy caldera bloom of night’s
     paradise
Spiral arms still have a few words to say
stirring from their outpost
Enlivened by half fallen zones of slanting suns
Heads beating like poison wells
Phosphenes
Brute radiance
will rattle you without mercy
bringing the symphonic web of some new tragedy underground
Mouth shaped fog waiting inside their columns
Ride them into the hot gates!
Lean forward into the next neighborhood
Wingless clock bludgeoning on
Its hooked sting comes to make you swell
like a snakebite from the future
Yet sleep still stands
near the great avenues and capricious domains of street lamps
    and frozen fire

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