The Demon King No stage, no solace, Oh mercy, tresses and crusts, gems adorned, golden anklet, smooth wisp of caramel drifting down a waffle cone He walks, footsteps as fire, sword of darkness at his side, Lido take him. Lido, cover your eyes and hold your arms up high, reach for the precipice, fall short Lido shape him. He sleeps under mushroom caps, the beast cross with mortal terror, toil, Associations in oil, slick, hydrophobic in lubrication It’s a beast kiss, Lido, the touch of another He lays at cursed bay, building harmonies at the crumbling docks And the waves come in, bearing garbage, poison, scraps and shards of tentacles, an epic built in snow angels just formed in the wake of fallout And his feet, Lido, Demon King toes touch Demon King lake, swirling in bloated brine, the venom waters, putrid, a sickness And the air carries. The Demon King cries. Tears fall down in parade, drums crash, cymbal shaking as it vibrates high and low The feeling of overwhelming fervor A sink’s response His faucet dripping liquid cheese Bile, filth, the color of his poison eyes There’s something in the water outside, the streams are clear, but they taste of scourge He cups the bile in his hands, a soup between frail stalk-y tendons, lifts it to his mouth and takes it in—the taste of music And the air carries. Five hours til call time He wraps himself in eaten cloth, moth-worn, steeped in threadbare cuts He lies alone, along the bank, buried in the sand, the way he hears them— Creeping bugs, seeking a peek, a glimpse, a glance Four hours til call Three hours til call He’s lain in cocoon, poor cloth, the better part of two hours Or was it one? Time passes so slowly here The Demon King The king of what His subjects given leave have left The ones who stayed have worn away from flesh, To trees, Taken forms provided by a glimpse of silver light He feels their breath in roots, hand’s pass over short rush, full breath, twisted wood, And in the way the bark splits—A name A name loved sunsets, but A name only lived in the dark The Demon King stands on a rock, projects himself into the glow of violet summer Two hours until call, and he cannot bring himself to move Eats dinner, marbles drifting, through the sand they find their way to the surface and get stuck in scuttling feet, one limb missing, one limb extra—modified crabs, I feel them living modified lives in modified sand under purple-yellow poison sky! Silver light It fills the Demon King with Dread One hour til call He packs his things, his wide-brimmed hat, those spiderweb loafers, an oxing fly, the crust of a crisp and tender powder ox—a sack, woven in vain—then he walks Across the surface tension of the lake, to the waterfall isle in the center Interdimensional plane-ride, the last flight out to the barren zone between voids, Between Layers, sections Made out of salted earth, The City Of the Dead The Marble Palace Where, in legend, Satan himself once slept, a thousand eons ago, before they dug a new city out of the ice and gave parliament a new place to smolder Through the depths he plunges now, a falling star, mourning star, To the fear that waits in the wings, One night, one more splendid night, last chance to see The Demon King’s Aria