Once Babylon

I am riding in the belly of the great yellow serpent
as is surges out of the earth’s bowels to challenge the sky,
defying the sea’s occasional fellatio… never content
to erode away in submission, or to bow to this destiny.
The serpent slithers forward, wrenching the living under foot
and raising cries from out of the people’s stolen land,
the gospel of their memory a wake of filled marble slabs
and broken teeth skylines, testament to our intentions.

From the belly of the serpent, I see visions of great walls
tyrannically impeaching the earth, silencing even the sea’s
quiet objections sung in the hymns of tides. Each wave
becomes a new wall that binds us, then bends us in supplication.
The serpent’s belly is now full from the lifetimes of gorging,
its castings the rich earth mudded into the cornerstones
of each new spire tooth planted in the skyline bridgework
of this town’s hollow, decaying smile. The city doesn’t speak.

The serpent is deaf and mute, instinct supplanting reflection
on this scriptured promise of Babylon, the scent of hope
lost in the sight of blind men who feed this clawing need
that tightens the soul as sea and earth become one.
Within the belly of the serpent I can feel the sun burning
against the mortared limbs of this blackened city,
the reflected promise of destiny now the fresh dug dirt
in the graveyards, the eulogies falling on deadened ears.

The serpent feeds on weak and wounded alike, children
always the easiest prey… born mute and blind, deaf
to the moaned whispers spoken to walls wailing
within this city cradled in the earth’s muddied breast.
I live in the belly of the serpent, once sustenance and promise…
now mingled with other souls who have lost their sight
and do not speak. We do not hear the moaning of the earth
beneath, or the wayward passion of the sea on broken teeth.

This is now the serpent’s land, the caged vision of unsculpted
marble polished and stacked against the sea, the mouth
of the city gasping for breath and thirsting… always thirsting
for the blood of innocents we bury in hollow, open graves.
I am the serpent feasting on this earth, this destined promise
bordered by sea and sky. The yellowed smile broken
by the missing teeth, the marble stones planted in careful rows
on the last hill above this city where our innocence now sleeps.