The Blue Mountain Review Issue 2

until the stars in constellation loom like fast-winged serpents come to taste the heart of mind with speed while winds beyond the breath of gods do rend the cross of mythic love a cordwood stash for April’s dreadful march toward spring.

When blinds out of sequence shudder in the gale forced through cracks in window frames, the bonecrunch of an angry plow breaks pockmarked skin of potholed street.

The smokes of nearby chimneys mingle briefly in the heat that spreads and slowly cools above the shingled roofs of steadfast homes: the bricks that clothe the hidden lives of neighbors, while midnight’s slowly passing clouds frown by (relentless eyes of Venus burning still, astonished by the constance of her stare distracted as the naked trees (the way the branches twist the breeze!) distracted much like Psyche’s lack of faith in darkened rooms (though man and beast set at her tasks she still was tempted into sleep).

How catholic were her petty sorrows; how epic was her doom until eventually her relic bones were gilt god-lifeless in the wind that carried her to heaven where she was condemned to weep no more.

When these skeletons of trees give way to shivering walls of bastard air, when a storm of discord chanting’s stripped the skin of love’s flesh bare, when untold passages of tears are swept ‘neath spiteful rugs with lipstick-painted care, I’ll recall her shadow’s trace about my meek and tender stroll across the landscape’s cheeky stare drifting madly in the whiteout of the setting face to face.

When chanting’s droll and otherworldly glint 36 | T H E B L U E M O U N T A I N R E V I E W I S S U E 2