I.

I am seated upon my forefather’s Throne of Rot
Their putrid crown brandished proudly atop my shame and coxcomb
All around me the West burns and her foundations crumble
I revel in the chaos, I can thank my mother for that
A Ronin without a home, a stationary drifter, the world’s disenfranchised son
I am the Forever Nomad!
The weather man on the radio today predicted an impending demographic winter
Forecasts look bleak

I think of my son and all that I should be able to promise him but cannot.
I think of my brothers and the struggles they will have to endure.
I think of my grandparents and how they have become strangers to this Brave New World.
I think of myself and all that I have accomplished and all that I will accomplish and I cannot help but laugh.
I laugh constantly and uncontrollably. Inside my head I am always laughing
I know not what I ought to know and I behave in a manner which one should not behave in.
In your palace walls oh, mighty king, do you know what I know?
I am free and I am alive.
I am so joyfully alive!

Seraphim hymnals, pieties prayer, a cacophony of lamentations, gnashing teeth and the clack of whips.
Solomon’s choir, perched in the rafters, is singing for us.
Spectres of Usonia dance along the walls like shadows cast by flames.
Three large cracks spider web across the worn, scuffed marble floor starting off at the farthest western corner of the room splintering off South, North, and East and then upwards toward the ceiling.
The tapestries along the wall have been seared, charred, faded with no discernable images to be made out.
Maroon silken drapes so dark they seem almost black, trimmed with gold lace speckled by fire opal, hang over the 8 glass-paned windows on both sides of the chamber.

I dawn my priest robe and my jester mask, the mummer king adorned in motley.
The presence of the Day, the Month, the Year surround me as I’m seated on my diamond plated throne.
Behind me stands Vishnu, his many arms are wrapped around my chest. I can feel his bloodlust through the tip of each of his thousands of fingers pressed firmly against me.
There is Keket to my right, surrounded by a swirling black chaos with a Cthlulu heart, a Myatt mouth, eyes of Saturn, and hands like an army of frogs.
To my left, seated on the arm rest of my throne is Freya, Brisingamen pressed against her breast, a horned helmet hides her sun-bleached hair.

Spring is in attendance, bedecked with flowers,
as well as Summer who wears a garland of spear-like ripened grain.
Next to summer is Autumn, with feet reddened with grape juice
followed by Winter who has hoar-frost in his hair.
Today stands across the room, always attentive to the present,
next to him, his squire Tomorrow, built like a beanpole, young and spry.
The elder Yesterday stands behind the two, his sterling-silver beard a matted and tangled mess, hangs down to his navel.
On his arm is Utopia in all her beauty, an iridescent shawl drapes slightly off of her one shoulder and then slips to the other.

In shuffles and clanks the chain gang made up solely of Moloch, whose horns have been sheared clean off
and Dionysus, who is muttering madness and somehow has managed to put himself into a drunken stupor.
They take their places next to each other in the dock at the front of my throne, heads high in protest of the conviction they know is to come.
What rain of frogs has drowned the senses of the world and turned us into dull, mindless, beasts of burden?

II.

“Now begins the arraignment of Moloch, Molech, Milcom, Malcam, Baal. Please step forward.

“You who are utter filth, solitude, and ugliness. What do you have to say for yourself?

“Moloch the false idol of man! Moloch the bear and the bull! Moloch the devourer of children! Moloch who sits on top of the power hierarchy! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks!

“Moloch who bathed millions in fire! Moloch the purveyor of infants. Moloch the machinations of war! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose hope caused poverty! Moloch who killed Agraria

“Moloch whose state is illegitimate! Bulldozed homes and new settlements! Men loaded up like sardines and shipped around the world and back again in oaken boxes! Remote control murder! Dead children transplanted from shore to shore! An endless stream of dearth!

“Moloch whose concrete fields of grass have transformed our landscape! Moloch whose spiraling skyscrapers of steel light up the night! Moloch whose poison breath warms up the Earth! Moloch whose piss causes the oceans to rise! Moloch whose flashing lights of green, yellow, and red control our lives! Moloch whose smile is endless daylight!

“Moloch whose agents read my every thought! Moloch whose satellites track my location! Moloch who watches me through my camera! Moloch whose freedom is the Eye of Horus! Moloch whose servers are filled with secrets!

“Moloch in whom men die lonely! Moloch who placed sex in my pocket! Moloch who praises the harlot! Moloch who lets Lillith run free! Moloch who calls this abuse liberation! Moloch who replaced the father! Moloch the castrater of men!

“Moloch whose fingers act like separate governments! Moloch whose eyes are TV screens! Moloch whose stream of consciousness supplies the teleprompters of the elites! Moloch that dictates our language! Moloch whose dialectic is silence! Moloch that shut the Overton window! Moloch who has separated church from state! Moloch whose feet trample dissidents!

“Moloch whose wealth is comprised up of stem cells! Moloch whose sex rips babies from womb! Moloch the ever lover of carnality! Moloch whose hymnals have brought us below replacement! Moloch in whom we praise the hijra of our enemy! Moloch whose hands guide us into the night!

“Moloch whose feasts are prepared with bugs! Moloch whose stomach is a trash can filled with rotting meat and produce! Moloch whose ribs are starving children! Moloch whose tears run through lead lined pipes! Moloch whose mind is woke capital!

“Moloch! Molech! Milcom! Malcam! Baal! Concrete pods! Reverse gentrification! 11-13 Degree angled toilet seats! Humans caged above robot work zones! Stucco houses made of ticky-tack! Identical exits! Endless potholes! Little sex pots! Androgynous youths!

“An arraignment and a conviction! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! You have been found guilty of all things evil! Sentenced to die by the hands of the young which you have so casually cast into the flames!

“Liberation! Lost generations! A new guiding hand for lemmings! No longer shall we be lead off the cliff to our deaths!

“A two-sided blade! Endless rivers of blood! Baptism in hellfire! The salvation of our great state! Your death shall lead to death and that death shall lead to paradise lost!

“The grind of hard labour! The hardships of the proletariat! The toil of serf and sweeper! The tale of common things!

“Your tawdry rule has ended! The charges have been read! The guillotine is sharpened! The method of your execution set!

There will be no flowers at your grave! No tears wept in morning! No bidding farewell! The celebrations of tomorrow! Sung by cherubs and children! And down you shall go on the American River.”

Moloch’s demise was swift. His head rolled across the floor. Vishnu quickly moved to pick it up and set it at my feet.

Who had left us for dead in the shadows of Nubia with nigh a light to guide the way?

III.

“NO!” wailed Dionysus, “I am Dionysus, I am Bacchus! I have done nothing to deserve this! All I have brought this world are pleasures and ecstasies! Drink! Drug! Sex! Highs! Hallucinations! Hysteria! Mania! Lunacy! Orgasms! Soma! Nothing but fulfilled desires! Complete relief!

“I am the reason that the whores and harlots are half price! Who do you think has convinced the priests’ daughters to give it up for free? I was the one who passed the Communications Decency Act! I lifted you up out of your puritanism and brought you into the modern world! I am Janet Jackson’s teet! I am the hot-blooded romance of Hollywood!

“I am the reason there is a bar on every corner and why you can buy marijuana at a dispensary! I am happy hour and one dollar drink wells! I helped cultivate the tobacco fields when they grow and I am he who compels the gas stations to sell cigarettes at the lowest price allowed by the state! I am the soldiers in Arabia who guard the poppy fields! I am the doctor who so carelessly prescribes the world opium! Who do you think it was who had made the alcohol you drink so strong!

“I am the preservatives in your food that make them taste so good! I am the delivery boy who brings you dishes from a different culture every night of the week! I am the isles in your supermarket overflowing with food! I am the sugar in your desert!

“I am pornography on demand! I am the normalization of sex dolls! It is I who causes every vibrator to shake and I am the one who pleasures the cam-whores you love to donate your money to online! How else do you expect to get your satisfaction out of the power process? I am the catalyst for your money to cause an orgasm!

“I am the caffeine in your coffee and the estrogen in your milk! I have modified the genetics of all your produce so the yield is greater and the tastes are more pronounced! I am the cheap labor that drives the price of your food so low!

“I am every microbrewery and whiskey bar in your city! I keep the whores warm in the winter! I was the one who stained your aunt’s lips red with wine and the dog that your father has trained to fetch him beer!

“I am the degeneracy that has brought you all such pleasure! The serotonin and dopamine that fire off inside your head! The uncontrollable laughter when you are high! Every fractal you see when you trip and all the light show that plays on your eyelids when you shut them!

“If I am guilty of anything I am guilty of bringing people joy in a world of suffering and nothing more!”

“What need do I have to read you your charges if you so proudly boast about them yourself?”

Dionysus joined Moloch in front of my throne. The chamber is silent. Everything reeks of blood. The trail has ended. This was a kangaroo court.

IV.

In walk the Fates. They say they are here to clean up the mess we have made. I am glad for it. I want to wipe my hands clean of this bloody ordeal.

Outside the people cheer. They do not know of the toll that was paid. Gravestones line the streets.

Crows fill the trees and perch on the roof of every building. All of Moloch and Dionysus’ followers died with them.

What a mess we have made! We will be cleaning up after ourselves for decades! And when we are done cleaning we will forget.

We will forget and we will repeat. We have done this before, thousands of times.

An endless cycle!

***

This is an excerpt from Patrick Kilgore’s new poetry chapbook, Spectres of Saturn. You can purchase the book from Terror House Press here.

Spectres of Saturn