The Totem Elect Poem by Barry Van Asten

Under the steed breath and warlock eyes,
His granite stare lifts a Canterbury miracle
And a death... Lips like a drained lake, reveals
A winding path amidst the sunken graves...

The thump, thump of hideous thought
In gloomy gardens... violated remains
Castrated to the crack of horse hooves,
To jab like wax-work, and become
Insane at some vile ache of time.

And at the summit of imagination -
Black angry marks; a widow's tongue
Cuts like some cancer through the heart,
Snorting at pantry fever and kitchen dust.

While above the tree-tops, from a steeple
Swooped a raven, thrashing low
Over columns and pillars, to the waterside
Where it earthed with ineffable joy,
And placed itself upon a pendant.

Here it wove for a thousand years:
Dreams and domes and all things lost;
All things smothered in their prime
By twilights charging at dawns...

Some dead foetus tumbled down
From out of the summer lightning;
Performing staggering etudes
In its unsteady playing.

An idea came to me:
Why not show it life?
I'll take it to the idol room
And breathe into it, intellect!