The Fiend Stalks Baba Yaga Poem by Patrick Frazier

There are marshes in the collective eye
That I swam and survived
Between the violent beasts
And the bloated bodies of the damned

But don't ask me what I am

A witch steals through the forest
Where corpses are set aflame
Echoed fears of "…if she saw us? "
Before her prey falls lame

I was bathing in ether
Humming high choir cherub songs
Pulling skulls of alligators from the mud
When far off I saw a boy
But closer a statue
Of tender living stone
And further away a fence of glowing skulls
And a line of dolls
With eyes carved from bone

Cutting around cold tendons
I saw her prepare a feast
That's when her home moved
On its rooster feet

I know that there are rituals
Corpses conduct in my head
Which prayer was that?
But rarely do their hymns
Reach me in my bed:

"Phantasia, Chimera, Basilieus
For what was where to the dead? "