The monstrous golems
Of things past, the colossus
Of rot and bloat; gaseous dreams
Rising to dominance,
Oh gangrene remembrances.
These wretched night stallions
Galloping in humankindless’ place
On the carnival-go-round
Of carnal (chambered) knowledge–
These stanchions under the brooding roof.
Awake in this penitential night,
Human awareness scratched across
A black-boarded mind
Of inner side-show sky overcast,
Waiting by the kafka-revolving door.
Endless spinning, the mirrored mis-hope
Of history’s leviathan launches
Bacchanal killing of the go-round
By skin-thin souls, carny totems of the
Masque, ‘redded’ from ‘poe’ to pole.
But all to stanch this ‘juglarnaunt’
This endless ‘steeded’ carousel of terror,
Only the parabolic words
Of one wanderer, a harlequin
Hanged by reasons of the world.
Daniel Wilcox earned his B.A. in Creative Writing from Cal State University, Long Beach. He is a former activist and former wanderer of plenty of where. His poetry has appeared various journals including The Writer’s Eye, Lucid Rhythms, The November 3rd Club, and Words-Myth. A short story based on his time in the Middle East was published in the September 2007 issue of The Danforth Review. Currently, he is working on a novel and a poetry collection, and living on the California coast with his mysterious wife and youngest son.
© 2008, Daniel Wilcox
Halfway Down the Stairs 