Pariah. Poem by Bryan Mahata

Mother, bear witness
I wrap myself in swaddling
clothes ungodly,

I, the Babylonian child
who captivates his jailer.

Daniel is feeding lions
but listen closely, press
the cochlea, notice what's true

strange roars from a chasmic den
are not meant to be his.

Though Balder's hurt and hurt again
mistletoe and more twist,
punish the ears with primitive shrieks,

Vesuvius has been woken up
by an explosive thread to

erupt and decimate -
if not by lava then through
it's cooling into black, fragile glass.

All's pure horror, geology
shaping my world -

a globe on fire, burning up
a spectrum of heat,
consoled by the fact that

once blue - mirrors earth's
unstaggering sky, will become
thin air, the backbone of life.