poetry is dead

in the hearts of the living

it is a cruel fire

whose smoke curls upward

from the mouth of the mystic

a conflagration unseen

the flames rage inward

hidden from the all seeing eye

it is a bottomless pit

which transforms itself

into a geyser shooting skyward

the voice of devil's angels

of heaven's hells

a gate locked from the outside

a collapsing wall of clouds

the draining of the seas

the flushing of the moon

the fluttering of the painted earth