Feathered Serpent and Smoking Mirror

Mark W. Smith

Part One: Smoking Mirror

Walking through the city at night,
lights glow against the soft velvet sky.
Along the many hard-edged streets and roads,
vision starts to shimmer, shift and erode.
The city transforms, its mask moves and lifts,
the thin veneer lays broken, torn with rifts.
Beneath an older world lay reflected,
one I had thought had long been rejected.
Smoking Mirror waits to receive his meed,
demanding awful cost to meet his need.
The old hungry gods raise their many heads,
from the hidden places where they make their beds.
Like carrion birds from high up on rocks,
with open mouths to their victims they flock.
The victim's lives are to be contracted,
for dread ceremonies still enacted.
They march on willingly towards their end,
the teaming city streets are lined with them.
They are elected for the bloody feast,
and are consumed by that ruling elite.
Speeding metal cars replace stone alters,
upon which the victim's life now falters.
The sacrificial lambs murmur soft sighs,
red is the color of the night's warm prize.
Toxins now daily reap their ghastly toll,
welcoming many into the ghastly fold.
Obsidian wines leave them still and numb,
as for victims the city's depths are plumbed.
These presents from She With Four Hundred Breasts,
offer them a false and deceiving rest.
The job market - the gladiator's stone,
tests endurance, until exhausted and prone.
One's courage is displayed for all to see,
spectacle shattered, fighting to be free.
This prolonged rite flays so delicate,
tenderly lacing the mind with tiny cuts.
Slowly the living flesh is covered in blood,
and offered to the Lords of the Flayed One.
Kindergartens of doomed infants despair,
their sounds of fear and pain fill the air.
These children are claimed and chained to foul use,
as they suffer death at the hands of abuse.
Limp bodies offered, held high in the air,
to those sickly lords who life from death pare.
On T.V., people in god-image roles,
lead lives rife with prices that take their toll.
Trained to dance and sing, with splendor arranged,
they jump through hoops until becoming deranged.
Fact, vanity and flattery alone,
lead those victims to the killing stone.
Those star performers, chosen above the rest,
provide prolonged performance and pass the test,
and so be slaughtered in bright headline lights,
having become Crazy Dogs Who Wish To Die.
Even the spectators offer their own blood,
to appease the forces, add to the flood.
The cost is accepted, but dimly understood,
Transubstantiation: money for blood.
A transformation that sustains the world,
Yet truth lies distorted, twisted and curled.

Part Two: Feathered Serpent

But through all of this a quiet wind blows,
whispering softly, onward this breeze flows.
From across the waters comes this Eurus,
blowing steadily through the darkness.
Telling one and all who care to listen,
of a new world and life soon to be christened.
A reminder of promises made in the past,
of a return and things that will come to pass.
Once tricked and fooled, a lesson well-learned,
will return and deal with all things concerned.
In morning's green park, a running child stills,
a small wonder, found wonder his vision fills.
Lost in the new-found prize and the joy it brings,
small eyes brighten and the tiny soul sings.
Reflecting a future in those small eyes,
transcending the previous night's cries.
Mother looks down with eyes that smile,
lost in her tiny prize, lingering awhile.
Reviving a past that lies stillborn,
transcending the present of that morn.
Two people find each other in the dark,
together for the first time they spark.
Hands caressing, kneading each other,
touch traces mystical contours on their
skin. Following ancient ley lines,
leading to shared secrets within their minds.
Cautiously spirit is drawn into veins,
slowly soul is made the flesh it contains.
No longer apart, the two lie breathing,
an imbrication of selves and being.
Acts of kindness, like candles in the night,
gently give off tiny shards of light.
Like father's kiss on injured finger,
that gentle breeze all around us lingers.
Working with words, out in field or dark room,
creating Flower Songs, pushing back the gloom.
From out over the still waters ascending,
comes the Morning Star arching and bending.
Towards the dawn in ever growing light,
pressing onward and rolling back the night.
Layer on layer all histories sit,
and one onto the other they all fit.
Time changes places and with them their names,
but the principle players remain just the same.
If our history has been a nightmare,
then our future is a dream we can all share.
To awake and greet a new Golden Dawn,
and partake in the Day it will spawn.
The time to rub sleep from our eyes draws near,
step into tomorrow without doubt or fear.