I. How

Image Description: A fire burns away the top layer of the image, revealing a faded collage of oil wells, smokestacks, and junkyards underneath. 

cunning embers still dance

on your grave, 

relentless, 

carving ground and kissing 

dripping amber skies

with tongue

choking, burning,

flickering haze 

reveals

no horizon, just 

crusted lips fastened 

on 

curdled aftertaste;

II. When

cinders,

city of sinners

enjoy no carriage

tonight, just carnage 

and wasteland enough 

to make heavens kneel,

stars weep as 

families count their 

blessings

in the streets

III. Where

road to hell paves

bad intentions,

worse investments, and

crisis sparks 

on systems nursed

in troubled silence

IV. Why

hissing hearth holds thirst,

not hunger–

carry with you 

weary retribution 

of scorched earth and

scorned other,

V. Whose

decades drought now 

runs cracked molars 

down

parched freeways

and fault lines, 

torched dreams and 

smoked lives 

for

VI. What?

is a flame,

if not a 

bated wish, 

and What’s

in a blaze, 

if not this 

rotting,

warmed

abyss? 

And

what a terrible dance 

it is, to watch 

your children

bathe in

ash

instead of 

rain.