The Desert Round

A scolding wind slaps my chafed face 

Biting with gritty teeth as I cower beneath my brim 

Hazarding a glance towards the horizon 

The sun glares daggers below ponderous, iron clouds 

It cracks the wasteland's distant spine 

Serpentine mountains throttling the whole world 

Coil by Typhonic coil 

The tableland sways from side to side, spasming 

Metallic flies alight the breeze and pinch hard 

Velveteen horse ears flick anxiously 

The tattered, bristling tail swishes dusty, desiccating air 

Noisome beast and man and echoless desolation 

Saguaros menace nearby like antediluvian Grigori 

Thorn by innumerable thorn 

Thunder behind me boxes my burning lungs 

Blistered skin seeks shelter from above and below 

Pale sand abrades decades of pale scars 

Knuckles and cheeks mirror the wizened, tortured vista 

Carmine memories skulk furtively 

Now trip salaciously behind sallow eyes 

Death by slippery death 

The brazen sun finally plummets, unconquerable and scoffing 

The ineluctable storm rolls in, vengeance riding from the East 

Driving mercy before it like panicked horses 

A murderous stampede of desperate, choking rain 

Level plain below swallowing and swallowed up 

The rusty panorama hammered down and burnished 

Mile by forsaken mile