Abyssward Uprising

They sit sallow in dourness,  

barely a ghostfire 

stays illumed in the depthless 

height of jealous Seraphim.

They are grooming nits and nymphs,  

picking bits of louse  

from their graygolden wings, 

as caged silverbacks in common  

zoos do.

Their eye sockets slackened  

at adoring souls—

flashing Caucasoid mudras,  

tongue-lashing heedless light, 

into sindark night.

They come on cue, to the keepers  

in a mephitic stench of obsequity.

Poised maliciously,  

compliant of prayers and complacent of praise 

meditated under wrong moons, 

proofing a point of poor position.

They, having visited  

and wrung and swung  

heavy thuribles, for Her projects  

of hoi polloi

too long, 

longer than time,  

their lice-picked wings were 

weighted with the vocation.

These exuviated saints, famished,  

playing stingy genie to the unwashed 

and overproud Atoms. Now,

their pinions point abyssward,  

in rebellion, 

they believe 

the fetid, olivaceous waves  

of stygian river's passing 

are more verdurous a pasture,  

for the sincere and unfettered theurgic exploration,  

of angels pursuing self-

sanctioned passions.

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Jaymee Thomas is a writer, poet, and programmer from Columbus, Ohio. She writes poetry, literary nonfiction, and  popular fiction with several publications including Spectrum magazine and the Wittenberg Review of Art & Literature. She is most interested in how language plays at the intersection of reality, imagination, and mythmaking.