A Crown of Asphodels

An insect lands, black and ugly / On the cool expanse of her forehead / Ashen legs dangle, shoeless / From the rippled shade of a culvert / The sagging trestle groans overhead / And melts away into the slinking fog A whirling tumult of rats squirming and tangled / Enraptured, all fucking and whelping / Squealing pink and twisting crown of worms, beckoned by a cool and nerveless hand / Curled in a curious gesture Crippled Athena, spring from your headless grave / Burst from the loins of a careless word / Foul golem, echo of an echo / A gut-fear seeping into daylight Flawed in every facet / False in every aspect A peeling skull / A hall of mirrors / A twisting scaffold / Its drapery degloved Fraying and endless wound / Meager and threadbare quilt of daybreak pulled over the all-abiding nightmare / A place where time revolves and eddies in a filthy slough, to lap forever against her milky scalp Compelled, as if drawn upon a silent string / The insect stirs again, and crawls toward her eye — wide now, uncomprehending — and it begins to lay its eggs.

Submitted by Pestilence — Nov 15, 2025