could've seen the mad
21st century,
he'd say: things don't
fall apart; they
hang together ruthlessly.
Ritual has raged its way
from a safe space
to a battleground,
wherein
putrefactive words
on a sacrificial page
are left out, each day,
near the entrance
to a cave
as blood-dimmed charity
for this fierce,
infernal dragon:
a serpent
bred to torment
those poor children
who refuse to praise
coherence with so-called
"passionate intensity,"
and whose name,
legend has it,
used to be Duty,
but is now known
in our stories as
Logical Consistency.
