November

Issue 38

His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves. -Job 41:24-25 Shrouded, wound about in mists as ancient as Leviathan, hidden as his yawning lair Atlantis in clouded absinthian waters, they lie, awaiting splendor’s blade to lay them bare. Hard as the nether millstone, enduring until time’s end, on Colossus’ rounded features they smear murky blots, stark horrors staring, mouths agape, list to scream truths these frozen creatures. This hybrid clutch by men forgot--begot by them, by us, in hidden moments, unrevealed, unrecalled--expect their sure confession, their bloody birth, their perpetual pall repealed. The only monsters we have known are these we’ve made, and stashed away in foggy seas spread wide. Hid deep, the stony spawn of man and worm in repugnant clinch produced, speed the ebbing tide. Thus our orphans seethe, till holy tongues lap the seas, and the effigies wake from eons’ sleep and live, taking wing, defying Earth’s pull, succumbed to ours, and come, forever ours to keep.