Lake of Fire

Begin with the stars universal,
or the black beyond the long stairs,
each step, crack and crumple, and then,
below ground—open your eyes.

If you had a head, in your hands, your eyes
across the lake, look between your fingers.
Figures dance as if on fire, licked by tongues
the lake spits out, menageries of flame.

About the killing, a wide vermillion plain
spans the horizon like a bloody rag
and here and there terrible beasts
tear at the still moving bodies.

Others writhe in everlasting
powerlessness to stop. Of time
and its iron click, the parts glow
white: in perfect solution.

Upon this nightless point crawls the skin.
The mud flat flickers on the distant lakeshore,
and a long coil of weeping reaches across.
You must abjure until nothing is left.

Christopher Title lives and teaches in the Twin City area where he also produces Barbaric Yawp, an open mic reading series. His work has appeared in South Ash Press, Living Out, rock paper scissors, Asphalt Sky, and Konundrum Engine Literary Review.