Cult – S.M.H.
March 22, 2019
Sun squatting on face of black plastic tarps burning in the desert sun like blisters charred and rising from burnt skin like body bags a divining of things to come. The ground flat and shorn, desert sand golden as wheat swirling around homemade targets of rusted barrels burnt out and abused with bullet holes puncturing iron like bone awl through hide of buck skin. Fence surrounding property derelict and failing posts beaten bare by sun bleached and deep scored by talons of birds grinded sharp by hot sand barbed wire sharp as long spines of cactus the rust carrying tetanus to breed in the blood of uncareful men. Property stretching for many acres the signs posted handmade scrawled in scratched writing paint breaking off like flakes of skin in burn of desert sun. Men and women and children in khaki fatigues waking for breakfast in the sweltering morning the sweat already beginning to dampen pits and cracks and pool in the legs of their bodies the women ugly with age and fear the children gaunt their faces sunken and ethereal as scarecrows their clothing loose and stirring in their jerked movement the men carrying assault rifles on shoulders pistols on hips large knives strung slantwise across their waists the tarps covering the outdoor kitchen gathering heat to themselves the black tarps hot as asphalt the shade buzzing heat the air quilted like an oven. Women cut stringy vegetables, open cans the women grab large pots the women turn the propane cans turn knobs that hiss like the rattle of snakes the women put matches to flame pots begin to heat and bubble with the boiling water salt the mush of their sustenance meagre and cruel. The men collect their bowls first the men stand in line the men wait with outstretched hands the children behind them hands folded their heads bowed their waiting infinite and empty as the air. The people collect their salted grains their mush bland on tongue the gruel grainy as maggots in the rolling of the mouth. People collect they stand around the tarps they sit on old crates, barrels, chunks of wood scavenged from the desolation they sit on breaking folding chairs bent as the backs of women stirring the morning, the women eat last they fill themselves last their heads bent to the work of others sustenance. The sun clots in the sky, palpitates like the red genitals of dog. The people gather for the morning oration. They wait patient, the sun patient, the sweat from their bodies wetting them with a film catching light like spider silk. The khaki fatigues burnt like grass militant in their sanding, the clothes rotting on the bone, filth smelted into flesh. The sun breathing heavy, bodies holding heat like the metal of a stove grate. The ears perked for the speech to come the eyes hazy the eyes red rimmed and enflamed like coals in fire. The eyes smoking black the lids a deeper redness in their lack of sleep their vigilance betrayed by the blood pooled inside. The gaunt crowd waiting for the holy words to spill forth from the man who held their life held the heat of desert held the heat of men. The gaunt crowd waited in the morning burning out the early mist. Their eyes glowering in the sun bleached like bones, pupils wide, the attic of the body blistering with heat. Some men wandering over to the latrines in their waiting, pushing out burnt stools their face a grimace of determination their face fully pressured in the bearing down of shit. Men balancing precarious over large spires of shit frothing out of asshole onto hair on legs back of balls on flaccid member. Pelvic muscles tight and balled in thimbles of pain burning tenses whole body tight as a drum bones shortening in muscle tension pelvis contracted like a fist copulating with pain. The urethra voiding to calm the nerves, piss dripping down shaft of penis, holy trinity of penis and testicles throbbing with virgin burning. The waiting harsh on the body the bones creaking in the flesh suit of their skin. They mill around like ants. The black tarps like a magnifying glass grabbing the heat of the day and spreading it evenly across the tick of their skin. Skin dried out by air and salt the skin dried out like cured ham the skin dry and agitated. Dead eyed they stare out at the burning world. The circle loose and expectant. A man walks forward, tall and grey lipped and wide eyed with fever. Man walks forward into center of circle into center of focus. The man with large arms and legs, densely muscled with the lifting of so many souls. The man dressed in army fatigues, guns smeared across body, bullets thickening the middle of him. Man walks into circle. Eyes upraised in their waiting for his mouth to crack. Lips move, throat bulges like a frog. The words appear on the air as if written there by an older hand. He raises his hands in address, raises his voice to the dead wind. He raises himself up beyond the thirst of his congregation. He raises his voice to speak beyond the shadows of sound in the desert beyond. A vulture treads the air above like water. It circles this communion of future killers. It circles this communion of future dead. Man speaks,
I AM ON A JOURNEY
The blood is the door through which I have entered and through which we must all enter to meet the favor of our lord.
The land is draped in suffering each rock and patch of dirt trembles with pain the aura of death embalms each human braised in the blood like a lamb belly
What truth passes that falls deaf on the ears of man?
The wing beat of a hawk trembles the skin of the rabbit but is silent to the ears of men
Time, that plank by plank eats voracious and unforgiving the flesh of all things is silent to the ears of men, but to God it crackles like rifle fire in the drum of his ears
FOR HE IS ALL THINGS
both eater and eaten// killer and killed//both plague and cure//night and day// //both light and dark//murder and birth//blood and bone// //both hot and cold//young and old//dead and living// born and miscarried//
and at night the holy larynx of our God trembled death into my ears.
He has buzzed like a horse fly the vision of our future.
Visions wracked my body like waves crashing on a torrid beach
I SEE ALL THINGS
I see all things blackened//I see all things burnt char cloth black//I see all things pained with the patina of flame//I see all things crippled with bubbled flesh//I see all things//I see all things hurting//I see all things dim//I see all things mute with the mouth of dead scream
I have found the tongue of the lord is drenched in the confusion of blood. To cease the suffering of this world we must open the door to another.
God told me to kill. I heard this in the fluff of my pillow the ear buried deep into the cotton mold. God told me to kill. I heard this in the deep of my ear buried fully in the downy cotton. Ear pressed into the stuffed sound of pillow I heard a whisper in my ear like wind through the rushes. The bristles bending gently in the innocence of breath. God told me to kill. So I came to get life in the steady beat of fear. So I came to get life in the bullying heat of day. I came to get life in this hallway of always, the abyss burrowed in the flesh suit of men.
We must build the Kingdom of God for the contagion of his Word in the ears of those suffering lambs
Faith is in the shedding of blood
The cup from which God drinks must overflow with those whose need is to be euthanized
His mercy is his judgement
The bullet will be swift and soft as a needle
The screams will puff up like prayers in the echo of eternity
This is the building of the kingdom of God
For this earth will heat with the blood of his need
Each disciple will sing his name hysterically all day and all night
Each disciple will sleep with his gun for his gun is his protection against the evil of man
Each disciple will chant hysteric and repeat the truth of His name
Each disciple will carry a cyanide pill in case of capture
Each disciple will train day and night to be of service to Him
All prayers will be said with lips and with hands so as to better reach the heavens through the vibrations of their actions
The heavens will tremble with our praises
With our hands we will open the door of jihad
With our lips we will lift the heavy veil of the profane
The divine will swoop down on black wings clutching flame to waste all sin
Opening the door of the fleshy body, man will tremble in divine fear, the Divine will reveal itself in the excess of violence
The realm of sense will macerate in the violence of confusion, sweeping away the flesh of this world for the bones of another more tenuous and strange.
The man steps back. The air raw, each grain of sand vibrating with terror. Air still, the pinon glowing in the glare of sun. A cactus weeps water, a snake drags its belly over the spine of its thorns. The crowd is breathing heavy, abdomens bloated. Choking sand, their stomachs heavy as concrete. The desert bleached of life in the thick welt of sun. The crowd begins to move. Many bodies scurrying like a herd of mice. Some shoulder rifles, others begin to line for the anointing. To receive the braid of thorns that crowns those who love the word of God before the vulgarity of cash. To wear the coat of blood that marks them as His own. The man steps away to gather the tools of his trade. To gather himself before his appointment with flesh. The people line to perform their ablution of blood. Breathing raw as the desert. The man returns from his canvas tent, his hands full of sharp objects and vestments of hide and snake skin draping his shoulders. He stands in front, his eyes closed, his words jawing silent from the crack of his mouth. He raises his head and motions the first child forward. The fevered speed of childs breathing crackles in the air. The child comes forward. The child kneels. The man raises his knife, the blade blinking in sun like bright eyes of God. The man lowers the blade to the childs head. His skin popping open like desert flowers in the soft bloom of night. He cuts a crucifix turned sideways to cross one from the world. The skin pink as a hymen popping the blood steaming like a hot spring. The childs eyes roll into back of skull. The mans eyes roll toward heaven. Crucifix cut into forehead blood swiped along the brow the cross marking the line of alterity//the hot lick of bending Time// blaze of annihilated sight //the hallucination of one world passing for the strength of another. X cut X blood drips like a spring down forehead into eyes clouding eyes like a cataract blessing eyes with vision of blood knife sharp as bull horn the knife cold on forehead like ice wound hot blood hot eyebrows furrowed hair sticky like jawed cherries spit out the mouth. Acolyte of terror will now go forth into the world to gather what one can gather. Knife placed sour onto forehead the marking X in center of high forehead the knife pushed firmly the skin opening like sleeve the blood dribbling down onto eyes brows nose the huffing belly wheezing with sharp pain performing ablutions in scalding water of capillaries the abdomen sprayed the mark sunk in with mirrored blade curved to slough skin smoothly apart to lay X on forehead like communion cracker laid on tongue white and starchy. Man lifts up his flowing skins, exposes himself to the nude air. He runs his hands along the length of his hardness. Begins to roll himself in the palm of his hand like a marble. He climaxes without sound onto hand. Raises his sperm to the air, rubs it onto the bleeding childs forehead. Cum smelling like callery pear pure white blooming on forehead. Cum pursed in the cross of the bleeding body the X marking the alterity of mystical love that seeks vengeance on the banal faith of vulgar men that senses brooding nightmare just below the surface open wound of the forehead mixing the bodies juices into visions of total death of the corpse of this world marking X on forehead to tilt the cross of son of god and brand on head the wilderness of snakes and scorpions that crawl through the cracks in Time and bury man in the annihilation of death that seeps like a spring ever flowing through the dry washes and ravines of desert life. High mesas drowned in the sap of death that flows effervescent in coiling lines of dry creeks. The tufts of hair crazed slick , fuzz of bodies murmur hallucination, the extinction of ego vibrating the electric air. The tongue of God inching terror into the kneeling spirit of boy, void lapping blood like waves on dense belly of sand. Holy rite splinting the body to crime, innocence gone in the judgement of knives. Body scourged and tempered like metal the delirium of spirit spasming faith arching through air throbbing with heat. Body branded in the ways of suffering.
The man steps back from his work, raises hands covered in drying sap of his body, raises hands, agony of agonies purged from his throat. Wheezing through bleed, slurring towards God, tongue red and hot as a rotten sun. Again, he begins to speak:
There is nothing
There is nothing
But God
This world will sink into the oblivion of stray flesh
The water that flows out of man is the same blood that runs through the rivers of the earth
Hear the maggots eating
They do not discriminate, all are equal in the humidity of mouth
They do not cry for the swampy loss of man
For they eat the mystery of the growling dark
And so shall we, in time
Each sacrifice will illuminate the world in light
We will consume the wheat of other beings
We Will See All Eaten
Both Good and Evil, Death and Birth
We will See all eaten
Skin crinkling like paper bags
Jaws chittering through blood
Throat engorged with the venison of men
Many will be wiped from the hive of the living
The dirt will loot the face
The bones husked
Teeth like kernels of corn ripe and yellowing in the loose pockets of jaw
Bodies thwacking flesh on flesh on flesh
The land haunted with the halo of our rage
All bodies blanched of blood in the harsh light of terrible fear
The stringy tissues of the world will be sheared in the entrance of the next
The air will be caustic with the smell of burnt flesh
The man quiets. The land fills with the rattles of snakes buzzing like seed pods jerked violent in wind. The sky spreads out like a butchers apron burned with black blood, mottled with the fatty grains of leather. The taint of heat from the desert sun cauterizes the childs wound. Alchemy of brutal land leaves the world pale in the trauma of fire. Gun shots pop in the quiet. The land still and full of graves.