Vast Emptiness Of Mictlan

Vast Emptiness Of Mictlan
© Surazeus
2025 11 02

Trapped in anticipation of regret 
by hunger to consume my own fraught soul, 
I rattle bones of my glass skeleton 
to shake my heart loose from its twisted cage 
so I may leap with grace of lithe gazelle 
who leads me through bleak desert of despair. 

Wandering without direction of hope 
in ancient forest burned to heaps of ash 
past limbless trunks against the stark gray sky, 
I search for edible concepts to eat 
but find no more than clumps of agony 
that writhe to break free from stone of my heart. 

With empty hands that grasp at ghosts of faith, 
while dreaming of cheese and bread in my mind, 
I explore vast emptiness of Mictlan 
where children wearing robes of rainbow silk 
carry skulls of their ancestors in jars 
to reserve their stories in whispered words. 

Surprised I carry no ancestral jars 
with mirror skulls reflecting long-dead stars, 
I break into temple on Lesbos Isle 
to steal the skull of Orpheus as mine 
so no one questions my right to exist 
while I dwell in city maze of Mictlan. 

Faceless in unpeopled Eden of faith, 
I lie beneath the apple tree of truth 
and pluck broken strings of the turtle lyre 
I dug up from grave of the tongueless bard 
to understand the strangeness of the mind 
which animates our bodies with desire. 

When I free shadows from roots of old trees 
I give them faces and names of the dead 
so they can live again in paradise 
where they pick apples for the filthy rich 
who pay them pennies for their blistered hands 
to fill their tables with grand feast of gods. 

Cracked walls of deserted houses, by roads 
that stretch straight forward through eternity, 
preserve secret fingerprints of the blind 
who leave their bodies on the desert plain 
so they become the landscape of Mictlan 
mapped by the clown who weeps in holy books. 

If soft raindrops may harden tears of faith 
to gleaming diamonds forged by the first flash, 
I may find all the people of the world 
still alive in great houses by the sea 
where they host barbecue parties all night 
to pervade vast emptiness of Mictlan.