Kingdom

A Pepsi-red sky frames the white stone

City-still shadows swim across its face

Dry leaves fill the cold air

And invisible children rap their knuckles

On tree trunks the color of skin

Stone sieve, heir to the dead winter

Noble corpse, that headstone

Leaves lament their fallen father

Whose neck now enthrones,

Lord and marker

Statuesque carcass, preserved

By the rock

Preserved,

Like men wish their souls

Could be

Dan Smith

There’s a man screaming into an empty crowd

His face painted by the sweat dripping from his furrowed brows

His hands hold a microphone in a knotted grimace

A purple horizon cuts the room,

Dipping undertones into the man’s words

There’s not enough blood and sweat left on the floor

So the man shakes his head and wrings it like a used towel

But he bleeds nothing but tears

And angrily he spouts another line as the agony climbs

Octaves bounce and dance, pain-skinned balloons can’t fly,

When they’re filled with screams

Around and around his seizures dip into rapture

A sweet serenity slipped inside the madness

The eye of the storm

A slim smile creaks beneath his barbed mustache

A crack of joy beneath the grief