by Yucheng Tao
After the Pantheon
We long for life to be immortal,
but curl in darkness.
The Skull-God’s body stretches,
its limbs of death unfolding after gods’ twilight.
In the silence after destruction,
death does not vanish,
just as the river of immortality
doesn't water anybody;
we remain between light and dark.
The Skull-God,
crawling from the scattered bones
of giants, gods, and elves,
nourished by blood,
the fruit born of countless wars,
flies on wings to every soul.
There, in that hush,
we arrive at the darkness of the center.
After gods, only ashes remain.
The Final Moment
we, like ghosts, enter the unlit room,
breathing in the dark —
on the bridge between life and death,
unleashing the desire of sin — covering our faces with both hands,
or pouring holy water into the soul. but the sacred light
still does not pierce the cracks in the wall.
perhaps — the serpent’s fruit — flesh and blood —
like pillars of the hieron — collapse — Sodom burning —
our lost infatuation — but we cannot find light of words from God
in the end
— our eyes — filled with salt.
Skull God: 1914
From the frozen mud of winter,
bones and missiles lie shattered,
facing one another
amid scorched flesh.
How can we, with the only warmth
of breath in the winter of 1914,
warm the frozen bodies
of comrades vanished in the trenches?
Like the pale moon hanging in the sky,
like a sickle harvesting
the Skull God’s prophecy.
Our steps are quick, like bats
moving blindly through gas and snow,
but no match for the storm of this dark winter.
We have no time to ask
why war begins, why peace is always absent.
We can only watch
as Death approaches slowly,
with footsteps soft.
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