...

Our bodies linear
limbless and righteous 
amongst the thorns of infantile black locusts 
your eyes of mesonoxian dew
fix as vacant moons
bloodlet atop the sunset 
graves of lilacs
hatchet dismemberment
our earthen anguine forms
my head upon yours
I still
the future withers before me
dead on the vines
never again shall we sip of God’s wine
our cold blood
our venomous love
our thrive and will
undressing 
every memory of renewal
I will not leave your side
I will swallow you whole
make mobile my heart
chimera our souls
I will keep you
memento mori
I will bite, I will writhe
I will keep wild 
ever and a day
lest we cease to exist
of matter or of myth 
My love, Our immortality
come to me
upon the back of Death 
ride forth 
bring with you
a seed of universal knowledge
clasped within your teeth
to plant upon my tongue
with our final kiss

E.A. O'Connell

The Devil's Darning Needle

A dark abyss, 
upon which the offering of petals pale, 
ripple the mirror

The Devil’s darning needle, 
propelled by soulful sighs, 
winds boughs, 
shaking loose a gravitational spiral, 
where He hovers in shallow graves, 
unearthing hair and bones with archaeological precision, 
soot-tipped wings stirring aging sediment phantoms, 
His body lifting earthbound cyclones, 
driving debris through psychomanteum stone

Dusted arachnid filament, 
long threaded within the cypress eye, 
where the darkness bites, 
the hell-tongue pull 
spinning ghost wires, 
unhinging a cabinet of curious perfumes: 
a heart of sutured leather hide, 
a mandible of corvid cadence, 
a vow fashioned from river polished bone

Oh, messenger of afterbreath, 
where the water witch conjures 
upon the air of moony weather

Her: a death meal praying 
a tinny voice of triangular overlapping chimes

His hot breath panting 
the reverse of the pane, 
the chilled glass etching His baritone howl, 
His curse pleading of
fingers, fabric, flesh, 
and as He harnesses Death’s patience, 
tapping out Her headstone epithet, 
syllables of disbelief and spatial frustration, 
the ground below Him ignites, 
Her candle extinguishing, 
Her countenance surrendering a smile, 
as the pricking of Her finger draws pomegranate seeds…

{We’re going home}

E.A. O'Connell