Breathing Ground for Phoenixes

There are baby phoenixes
burning inside my lungs.
They want to grow
into their deaths
and fiery unabated splendor,
want to consume the ash-cake
coronating their birth-days,
which matches abolition to symmetry.
I am being asked, no forced
to open my mouth
and breathe their remedial fire
out, as if it’s my own,
to give due ventilation
to the ribbed arterial flames
that seek the spatial cradle of air
in measureless rebirthing.
It seems complicated
and esoteric, but really it isn’t.
The way of living mythology
follows its own inviolable course,
a track attuned not to the world’s fractures
but to reality’s filial bond with itself.
There are ancient-new phoenixes
burning inside my lungs,
and with every breath I take
I grow intimately closer to identity loss
through medicinal arson.

 

IMG_6469
(Image by Izumi Yokoyama)

About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, writer, poet, performer, and playwright, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of four novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, and No Man’s Brooklyn; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His produced, full-length plays include: LOBSTERS ON ICE, ADAGIO FOR STRAYS, THE BEST MEDICINE, ZEITGEIST, U.S.A., and WEREWOLVES DON’T WALTZ.
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3 Responses to Breathing Ground for Phoenixes

  1. johncoyote says:

    Amazing artwork and words. Thank you for sharing.

    Liked by 1 person

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