The Infernal Operator

 

 

The Infernal Operator

The incubus is having

another rough night;

a bitter bell keeps ringing

between his horns, foreign, 

off-tempo, pounding like

the gallop of a three-legged horse,

or the arrhythmic crash of cambered granite

tumbling from a fallen cathedral,

and to top it off

there's an angel in the fire,

feathers burning acrid, ashy black,

dialing, dialing the clouds, asking 

the great silence left when the clacking

rotary wheel cogs home: Where is the bird-winged host, 

my alabaster birth brothers, the holy
triune fatherspiritson
to pull me out?

The incubus knows the angel

has landed in the wrong fireplace for this,

yet still he wishes

it would happen, to see at last a miracle 

not born of tormented flesh 

or the familiar's lascivious alembics,

 

and also so the noise would stop,

the pale, luminous eyes round as blue worlds

cease following him

from window to window as

he tries frantically to let out the stink.

Doesn't it care, this minister of grace, that

the incessant ringing, the billowing smoke

of its rendered virtue, distract him 

from his greatest opus?

(50 Shades of Damnation,

to be published next spring.)

Why doesn't its everpresent

compassionate disaster master save it?

Instead it burns and burns

as the phone rings on unanswered,

sweetly smiling, staring at him 

as if the lines weren't down

in a world on fire;

as if there was something

he could do.

 

 

 

~October 2015, lightly revised June 2023 

 

 

 

 

  

I couldn't as yet find any angels to wrestle, but I do have the incubus and his quandary here.(To read poems in this series, click the eponymous tag.)

posted for Wrestling Angels at desperate poets

 

 

 

Images by Salvador Dali, Fair Use via wikart.org

Top:Debris of an Autobile Gives Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone, 1938

Lobster Telephone, 1938

Driving With The Incubus

 

 

 

 

Driving With The Incubus

(Incubus VIX) 

 

 

 

When I first saw you, neither man

nor woman, flesh nor fowl,

you'd brought round the car; a wisp

of sulfur fog hung from the grill.

It snaked up your shoe to your 

black and white smile

 

neither corrupt nor immaculate,

misting my face like tomorrow's shadow.

 

You held the sedan door wide;

I might have walked away but I was young,

and you were the best chauffeur

the devil could find, with

that changeling's face, the hellpit's flare,

 

black peacock eyes and velvet hands

for the gears. You put them

 

over my fog-wet lashes;

 through the holes

in your skin I saw pinpoint stars

as you smoothed the rucked sheets

of my cheek to finger 

the bed of skull so soon to be yours.

 

It was a black car without a brake

made to run the asphalt years

when the heart 

was a cindered highway,

each crossroads a Celtic knot

the devil my driver

til we stood at journey's end,

 

neither man nor woman

nor flesh most foul,

 

incorruptible corruption

tipping at the edge of the wailing abyss

where all I can see

are waning stars,

sulfur skin steaming fog, your

sharp teeth scarlet through

a feral smile.

June 2021

Posted for Fireblossom, at

The Sunday Muse 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: I've written many poems for the incubus over the years. He's always changing his face. You can find them by searching the blog or by clicking on the label "incubus" below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: top via the Sunday Muse Fair Use

Bottom Untitled, © Zdislaw Beksinksi  Fair Use

 

 

 

The Infernal Operator

The Infernal Operator

The incubus is having

another rough night;

a bitter bell keeps ringing

between his horns, foreign, 

off-tempo, pounding like

the gallop of a three-legged horse,

or the arrhythmic crash of cambered granite

tumbling from a fallen cathedral,

and to top it off

there's an angel in the fire,

feathers burning acrid, ashy black,

dialing, dialing the clouds, asking 

the great silence left when the clacking

rotary wheel cogs home: Where is the bird-winged host, 

my alabaster birth brothers, the holy
triune fatherspiritson
to pull me out?

The incubus knows the angel

has landed in the wrong fireplace for this,

yet still he wishes

it would happen, to see at last a miracle 

not born of tormented flesh,  

and also so the noise would stop,

the pale, luminous eyes cease following him

from window to window as

he tries frantically to let out the stink.

Doesn't it care, this minister of grace, that

the incessant ringing, the billowing smoke

of its rendered virtue, distract him 

from his greatest opus?

(50 Shades of Damnation,

to be published next spring.)

Why doesn't its everpresent

compassionate disaster master save it?

Instead it burns and burns

as the phone rings on unanswered,

sweetly smiling, staring at him 

as if the lines weren't down,

as if there was something

he could do.

~October 2015

posted for    real toads

Fireblossom Friday

(For my other poems in the incubus series, just hit the eponymous tag below.)

Images by Salvador Dali, Fair Use via wikart.org

Top:Debris of an Autobile Gives Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone, 1938

Lobster Telephone, 1938

Reposts for Christmas

Hello again dear readers. We are getting ready to go out of town, and I'm not quite ready or able to come out of my hole, but I feel strongly, as I read your poetry, that I should have something here for you to read in return until I get back. So, I am going to post an old poem once a week or so, not linked to any prompt, or with any expectations. Feel free to comment or not, read or not--just my attempt to give back to those of you whose work gives me so much comfort right now. Here is one from last June.

Incubus VIII

Untitled, by Zdzisław Beksiński

Incubus VIII
(Bloody Hell)

Hell is lonely without my demon--

my personal one, I mean, because

there's no shortage here of devils.

 

Basting on the liquid lava's lips,
I'm alone in brimstone sunscreen,

no ruby pitchfork's flip

 

when one side gets too burnt,

no serpent sapient tail to scale me,

just the brisk popping of my cookery.

 

I thought my demon knew there's no

vaccine for the maenad's bite, that

nothing says forever like damnation.

 

I was killing more than willing

to lie griddled on bloodred coals

and call it love; but I missed his

 

listening kiss in the hissing steam.

Hell is lonely, bloody
empty without my demon.

 

I thought this blistered blaze might power
his blade-heart's forge, and this hammer pain

might twin us bright as living never did

 

yet after the first in-twisting, after

first blood spilled

he disappeared

 

and that is Hell for you.

 

 

 

~June 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ This was originally posted for       dVerse Poets, where Karin Gustafson (Manicddaily) challenged us to write of twins, twining, combining or uncombining. Though I thought I'd finished with him, as I've written many little scribbles about my twin the Incubus, still he seems to linger somewhere at the back of Hell's waiting room.  If you'd like to read the others in this series, you can find them  here.  ]

 

 

 

 

Burned In The Bathtub

Burned In The Bathtub

After his midlife crisis

the incubus has settled down.

He takes a pill now.

He's sold the Lambo 

and grown a beard

grey as gourd rind

mute as dusk. It teases

when he comes up behind

but better of course,

than mere

insincerity of stubble

or truth of the lash;

or so I tell him.

His rage, his acquisitive

lust, his long

hierarchic frustration

with Beelzebub, his angst--

all abated. He's stopped 

going naked except when he's here

though now the light

must be out; the mood

must be clear; the Jacuzzi

has to work, while I burn sage

to make darkness soft lather

on skin cracked and dry

from hellfire and age.

Instead 

of the sweet drip of lies,

instead 

of my fruitful screams,

instead of the  hoof lifted high

to leave a burnt print 

on my spine,

there's only androgynous giggle,

a few sips of  white wine,

a cooling brain,

a voiceless music

the color of ash

falling like misted rain.

~September 2014

posted for   real toads

Challenge: Out of Standard

Isadora Gruye (The Nice Cage) asks us to write a poem about a lie that could have been told better. I have wiggled around with the POV some, but there are plenty of poorly told lies to choose from here.

I've written too many poems to count about the incubus; you can find them  HERE

Top Image: Cialis Logo, courtesy google image search.No copyright infringement is intended.

Footer: The Flautist, by Remedios Varo

May be protected by copyright. Posted under fair use guidelines via wikiart.org