Poem - Untitled

 Untitled
by Joel Bradley

A shining blade is drawn across the fleshy throat of the pig
and crimson pearls spill forth in its cold wake,
filling the eager, cupped hands of waiting children,
Wide-eyed and bare-toothed;
overflowing the fonts of innocence
with the outpourings of viniferous veins.
In the squalor of the sty, a church.
The congregation howls and writhes,
scant bodies frolicking in shit and blood,
ecstatic in oblivion,
an ancient faith without a name,
a silent prayer to forgotten gods uttered
by little mouths brimming with blood
Still warm
and mingling in the worldly filth at their feet.
And when tallow candles are extinguished by trembling fingers,
slick with the wines of mortality,
and only cold Moon-light remains,

All appears black before Her appalled face.

 

 

This is an older piece, written about this time of year back in 2021. It is in keeping with the style of some of my oldest poems, heavy on symbolic imagery and dictated more by 'stream of conscious' than infused with intent. Or, at least, that is how it starts, and then points of interest are extrapolated and expanded, etc, etc.
As with all things, make of it what you will.

-JB