October Poem of the Month — Angel Uriel Perales

Fugue Life

I’m nanoseconds younger
in the mirror and abashed,
wearing weakened skin
like a sharp cilice abashed,
drooping guerite eyelids
and inwardly wince abashed.

Such shame, the leathery cinctures
of centuries, such Biblical shame,
ashamed and drunk with lust like Lot
pining his salt lick wife and his pregnant
daughters repugnantly ashamed

but alive, sight travels from my iris
to my spittle spackled elapsed reflection.
A single candle flame flickers, fantails,
my soles are burnt, I’ve walked through
il Ciampate del Diavolo, I’ve seen
the devil’s footprints and the damned
fascist suffers from plantar fasciitis.

I pray contrite in this windowless place
where the hankering citherns play hymns
contrary to the wind; let the impatient
clamor bestride the misery of Job,
let the Buzite bees attempt to mediate,
let my adversarial accusers walk to and fro
and stomp up and down and let God
harangue from his tourbillion.

I am the only penitent in my fugue life.
I grin chagrined, consecrate my memories
to forget and fit my foot into the Teufelstritt.

Angel Uriel Perales is a poet and journalist currently residing in Valley Village, CA. Please visit his poetry website at www.rumrazor.com. 

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