Underboss Renaldo Putrefaction, The Assassin of the Red Line,
image by Daniel Y. Harris
The Old Age of the
Assassins
(for Jeremy Reed)
I have seen the Orient retire
In the pond’s Yellow home base
octagonal
I’ve seen the mothman with a gas mask
his leather jacket opens to a candelabra
a nestle harmonium the nipples of Christmas
lights irradiate with crystal tenebrae
I’ve tapped the split moonlight in reverberated
fevers and clipped the moon’s plasma
The markered fevers, the spells, the snow’s
Symbolist moon accruing caches of pyrite bullets
The moon trapped in fireflies and the crack
smoked hourglass
The trap peacock is spread eagle
in the Lego’s eye and the catch
of the sutured moon
The sensory pheromones and sixth sense
I have seen the Orient retire
cueballs
Dribble in the brouhaha of a Leprechaun’s
golden eyes
Traced in the breath of a psychotic moon
The phalanx eskimos give unction
from on high
A spell traced in vision is lit with fever
And the candelabra’s vision
is refused in AE’ Housman's skull
Staring in cauterized flame
Still here and with you.
—John Thomas Allen
