from
The Charm and The Dread
by Rodrigo Toscano
Miasma
And suddenly, the words are gone again
The globe’s entire surface of meaning
Has been wiped clean, what lingers is absence
Tightly banded around your mouth and nose
Making its way to the next waiting spot
Procession in a cadence of silence
Choreography of the miasma
Something in the air, separate from the air
Something that can seize you, make you its own
Offer you to the spiky mothership
Intelligence of no intelligence
Impervious to all arts to name it
Though we name it, give it a million names
And witness a million names flicker out
Clarity
The world of women
is ending, as is
the world of men
children’s worlds
are on the wane too
animals still thrive
though, to us, they are
quite done, as is the sky
and the oceans too
fading from view
along with the stars
long gone, the moon
was the first to go
and amazingly, the sun
went with it, gone
are grasses, to us
meadows murmur
in utter darkness
forests are forgotten
houses, neighborhoods
cities and nations
poof – gone
the arts, humanities
fond fountains of hope
flaming out, as are
‘critiques of power’
‘interstitial freedoms’
smoky afterglow, ash
music, of all things
remains, is unfazed
by this psychodrama
of absence, disappearance
and dance is – a hop away
science, what remains of it
is like the animals
unruffled, and in it
the whole bloody way
Maskers
People will forget, or want to forget
All this rubbish of masks, all this haggling
The so-called “tough” non-masker, the said “weak”
You can see some here! young, at river’s edge
Fully masked quartet, likely monster free
With shield and sword, phalanx facing the foe
Someone else’s death – not their own, they stand
Stoutly defend their people – all people
While popping, or trying to pop, pink champaign
Spilling over muffled conversation
One springs up to take a gulp, six feet off
And here comes a fifth! black, bloody fanged mask
Completing the quintet, soon forgotten
Save for this sonnet straining against it