Before me the fire’s lit, and so I sit lotus style. My thoughts’re sterile. My soul’s crocodilian languid in the swamp. Smoke from cackling branches & all that wispy razzmatazz before me sway smooth as jazz towards the cosmos like cottonmouths. The chiminea roars to life, teasing my attention — I gaze w/ eyes glazed into its flame, a rare glimpse into the infernal catacombs, enslaving the wicked ilk of days yore w/ their gasping hearts now hung from fishhooks in their eternal tomb,: beating so weakly but never quite ceasing, and their discarded meat-bags groaning in igneous agony w/ arms outstretched for some trickle of Salvation’s saliva… Though, am I any less damned than those below as I unzip this burdensome spaceship of flesh bestowed — my rapscallion stomach sicker & sicker, imbibing in the ancient ichor? Eh. Such retrospect would have to wait… The trance’s near… No more fear… I discard the Mask & awaken within through feelings of a waterfall freefall… My mind’s simmering like gumbo mumbling shaman mumbo jumbo. The possession’s intense. The convulsion’s vile. Pituitary senses. Reptilian smiles. Visions of Elysian delirium flood my dreams rich as the Nile & a purple aphrodisiac aura oozes through the space-time cerebrum — amethyst matrimony; exchanging vows and a kiss; gazing vast into the flames. Blessed be this bliss. Another pupil Hell claims.
Vincent Vecchio is an on-and-off again writer from Vancleave, Mississippi. He’s had poetry published in The Write Launch, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Humans of the World and The Evening Street Review.