Saint Of Static Poem by Isabel Szurlej

Metal-lit, red wings deploy—
broken horn arcs up, a question honed black.
Lightning scores a cobalt wash—
a live spark seeking discharge.

The equine skull—ice-sheened, hollow—
stares, intent.
Purple from sleeping thistle-heads
spills its anatomy into every thorn.
Two kingdoms divide the field: the redness of alarm,
the hush after screams.
At centre—kneeling in the gale's foam—
a saint of static, unblessed—a prayer
to Th' Idæan Gods: a fracture hymn in chrome.

Torn—not in flight—the ragged pinions,
alight within, furnace-pink,
a heartlamp bleeding in the fog.
Then this: power without shape, unmanifest—
dragging chill across the air,
thunder in reverse, caught mid-violence.

A stamp of panic—bright as a freshly opened lung—
pressed into waking.
Not a ghost—a painted dream saying:
NOT YET.