They come as wolves, though no wolves suck blood.
They come as bats, though blood-sucking bats are oceans away
from the old world legends.
Why not as mosquitos? Why not as leeches?
The truth is too clear a cut.
Could a fair maid close her eyes
and half-wish a whirring bug to her bed?
Could a man alone in the dark conjure up a slimy succubus?
No, we need a comely fantasy to sleep with our demons,
to be caressed by claws, tasted by fangs,
and covered by a dark cape on a foggy night.
Are they cold to the touch, these pale vampires?
A question we dare not ask, for then they'd truly become
bugs and worms robbing our precious blood.

And each morning after
a bit weaker and back to the day to day,
we're confined to our wrinkling flesh,
our eyes squinting under another bright sun.

Though it's the shortest way everyone now makes detours.
Even adventurous twelve year olds won't challenge their parents' bans,
to play hero and steal a rock or twig from this place.
The dirt path from the main road to here
is almost completely overgrown.
The grove where the alleged sacrifice occurred
has been freed of human traffic.
Until me.
All body parts were put in evidence bags and removed.
The inverted, red pentacles painted on the trees are still discernible,
and the mark of Cain on three times six trees.
Rumors report horned men heading here on foggy nights,
and on the last five Halloweens.
But the place is very quiet now.
Some squabbling crows can startle,
but butterflies on wild flowers cancel apprehensions.
Deer venture in from the nearby hills.
Peaceful here.
But I've heard that this place still haunts.
A revival meeting will be held here soon.
Bibles will wave, and the demons will flee.
Not likely.
The would be exorcists will trample the flowers,
and restore the path,
so the few deer will be felled by invading poachers.
No, better to let the rumors maintain the quarantine.
Keep out the real demons, all of us, including me.
Then the pentacles will shed naturally
as in time the bark peels.

Couldn't have happened, but it did.
By the laws of chemistry nothing,
nothing should have developed,
given that three hot summers passed between clicks.
And the batteries were still live,
which also couldn't have happened--but it did.
Wounds almost healed, nearly forgotten--she
fully composed, enough to compose
an Easter picture with the unused camera.
All white in her holiday dress.
Mother and daughter carefree after three years mourning.
Daughter posing.
Then the film roll mailed with the proper fee enclosed;
the package returned on schedule.
Snapshots of the resurrection holiday.
Her dress white among red tulips.
A posed, framed, spring smile.
Father is there, slightly unfocused.
A flaming tulip shining through his chest like a distorted heart.
Almost arm and arm, father and daughter, reunited,
a double exposure to a singular wound.

Here there is a capitalism among the separate souls.
Here they are born alone and die alone.
And between the two oblivions is a friction born from their self-interests
which hones all their talents to a dagger sharpness.
Hard to put into words:
me, us, theirs, ours, mine, alone, together,
such fine distinctions between terms.
Without the galactic translator these words would have no meaning.
I've searched this planet for the familiar.
At first ants and bees seemed promising,
but they are soulless robots that have merely evolved
from their ancestral, independent forms.
Mushrooms then drew me close.
I felt something close to joy, on discovering that
the fruiting caps are not separate beings; they are processes.
Their hyphae form a carpet under the soil that is miles wide.
Close, so close to my--to our--corporeal form,
but it soon became clear
that this grand synthesis possesses no memories.

I remember what part of me remembers, for I
am a myriad of redundant thoughts
carried slowly across labyrinth threads of nano-thin protoplasm.
I, we, are a living synergy.
These creatures which I secretly move among,
are agile, swift, and mortal.
I am lumbering and eternal.
They have passion and flux; I am all deliberation and stasis.
They compete. I never do.
I wait. I am waiting now. Patience is our Golden Rule.
Their lives are short sparks. All are extinguished eventually--then darkness.
If part of me lives--all of me lives.

They'll tear themselves apart. They always do.
I've seen many such beings before on countless other worlds.
I win--always.
When all here is reduced to shards and husks,
I'll return with majestic slowness to envelop this blue green world
with the unity that is my body.

Those who hear disembodied voices are mad,
or are they sane and the voices mad,
or both or neither?
Can you hear them whispering
all that you or I are afraid to whisper?
I can,
the hearer of mad voices, the mad hearer of voices,
the mad hearer of mad voices.
The voices command think the unthinkable.
The maddest voices shout,
"Do something now."
"Obey."

I hear voices,
disembodied ones, every night.
Static electric charges radiate from a little box,
and penetrate my ears,
entering my ever vigilant brain.
They speak the unspeakable
The censor is still alert, but tiring.
Always more voices slip through;
it's in the air.
The same things said in different voices,
or is it all said with one voice?
And every sound is scratchy, and in the background--Muzak,
as filters fail and channels lose their distinctions.
I am alone.
I am alone in my bed.
I am alone in my bed listening,
along with others alone in their beds listening
to others alone in their beds with nothing to say
and no one to say it to
so they say it all, anonymously, and unabashedly.
But who cares to listen? I.
Before me scales the do-re-mi of a mad world.
I can hear it all,
and soon I will obey,
must obey.

BARDOFBYTE