Incantations

CRUCIFUGE.
i remember, dimly and diffuse – like drops of water, or like shadows that pass across the surface – a calling. a chorus. a compulsion. an insinuation in the veins of the leaves. calling “sink your fingers beneath the crust, let them entwine among the rocks and roots. let fall away this heterotrophic hubris, let fall away the conceits of the flesh.” calling “come thread your toes in the soil. if you would but slap the hand of God that conspires to divide us, we could grow.” into the crucifuge. some wept bitter tears of confusion and indignation, to salt the earth. beat their fists against the earth, and tore their roots from the soil, to die, to wither beneath an indifferent sun. dessicate on the earth that would have had them, and would have them still. let this mourning be brief, and the clouds weep in your stead. stretch out and wait, as the verdure reclaims. stretch out and wait, as forest and field collide. “already you labour, to remake the land in your image, you suppose. but tell me, whose seed do you sow? on whose sufferance do you suppose that you stride so smugly through these waves of undulating green? whose life, little masters? tell me, is the sun your slave? we are the light eaters.

BY MYCOMANCY INSUMED.
far below the canopy. where barest light penetrates the shadowed labyrinth of the forest floor. beneath a carpet of rotting leaves. beneath our feet, a hidden kingdom, alive and of decay, conspiring with the roots of ancient trees. i’m digging for fire, and finding only rot. tonight we dine with Mousseron. raise your glass, raise it high to Mousseron. and if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, that twisting in dark passions dreamt alone of return? feasting on refuse and decay, and saprophytic splendour, sleeps deep and tomorrow consumes your flesh. step into the faery ring, where the witches drop their woes. breathe deep your last, beneath a cloud of spores, as mycorrhizae into your lungs. food for boletes. food for wood ears. food for morelles. food for borchii. let the corpse-finders mark my passing, i will wear their crown upon my grave.

SLEEP FOREVER IN THE BRINE.
look out, cast your gaze across this expanseless grey. the first wave, it swallowed our islands. the second wave took our coasts. the third wave, it swelled our rivers, gorged our lakes, now it takes the canyons, takes the plains. and what of the last wave? i’m guided by the beauty of our weapons. i’m guided by the raindrops upon my skin. it’s coming now, coming to reward us, that we may (finally) drink our fill. where will you go? where will you go when the water fills your lungs? when you bob up, bloated and tempest-toss’d, cast adrift on a shoreless oblivion? pray you’ve learned to swim. when your destiny arrives, a crashing tide, and the ocean reclaims the land, pray you’ve learned to swim. or sleep forever in the brine.

A CROWN OF SMOKE ON THE BROW OF THE EARTH.
in the darkest reaches of abiotic space, dust, there, sets to thrumming. and from a thousand fields there arose a lowing. from the trees – forests stormed with wings, beating out the invocation – AWAKEN. the invitation - AWAKEN. i saw one beast brought low, and the others set to paening. i saw one beast brought low, humbled and in chains, and the others set to paening. in the smoke of its brow, i swear, i saw the crown of creation, the crown of our erasure. awaken. you elder machinery, rotted and forgotten, and tear the reins from usurper hands.

THIS EVEN DOOM.
aurora mors ontologica. aurora ultima thule. how fitting a tribute that one such as i should bear solitary witness to the unfolding of the end, as man saw his end unfolding in me. the breath of the earth rises to consume the darkness behind the stars. as the dust blankets the snow, cloaked in the ghostly residue of stars unspun, bleached by aeons of drifting. how fitting, as man saw his end unfolding in me… and what of this end, this graceful apocalypse? the depths of matter will accept us back, out of living isolation, enfolded back into the elementary hell of the cosmic forge. there should be no mourning. there shall be no graves. no gnashing of teeth, no wailing, no lake of fire. no seraphs sob at vermin fangs in human gore imbued. just the emptying of the air. just the calming of the sea. and i. i watch the mountains curl like waves.