Larval, Voracious

Comes a conqueror, bent on conquest.
You know this; clad in Oakleys and piss.
Scent him first, he’ll kill for the notice. He’ll kill
for killing, kill to develop the habit.
To hone a craft. His sex, he’s told,
will be fantastic in the blood.
He would have you hang those sheets for him,
With their single stripe of blue, a stolen skull,
a single, lidless eye. His sweat, a mire,
a land out of reach of theodicy,
stagnant pools of the soul. Did you see one?
It wriggles in the water, larval, voracious,
crying “Gods drink blood and so will I!”
They wriggle, one and all, s-curved, all dark
no stars and a dishwater sky. Scent him first,
he tells himself he is a predator and comes
looking for quarry. He rises, mosquito from water
in love with the clenched fist, in love
with the blocky matte of his possessions.
Sickness listens in his cells, ameboid, infects.
Come and see, he rises from the water,
smells of well-bottom, copper, and cordite
murder in the flare of his nostril.
He wants you to see what he does next.
And he thinks about the sex he’ll have.
Fantastic.