Apocalypse-Skull-God
written by: Yucheng Tao
I
A gentle breeze blew coughs
through busy streets.
The skull-god descended on ebony wings
whispering into the dim sunlight
against its skeletal embrace
in the ashen winter.
Before long, this snow-whiteness,
rheumy & noiseless, blanketed
the entire school.
I yearned to save, save, save.
Planet R, as a neutral coalition,
merely recorded & observed.
The skull-god grew gradually
In the interplanetary space,
feeding on humanity’s voracious desires.
People, chasing after money,
had raised the dire-wolf,
whose name was Planet X,
crawling out of the X interior
a flying lizard-like skull-god.
No human sin.
No skull-god.
My master told me.=
II
Coughing echoed everywhere.
People spat blood everywhere.
I witnessed
Shrouds spread like clusters
of white sausages
in these hospital corridors.
If one gazed down
from the boundless sky,
crimson as a sharp blade,
meanwhile, would shatter
every night for everyone.
I saw
blood flowing like a fucking
snot, steaming of all.
Anxiety, marble-like,
sprawled and clung to me
among the bare palm trees.
No authority had I to act.
My master of Planet R
prophesied to me:
when the skull-god comes,
three colors,
three judgments.
A faint fire
a long time ago ignited.
Born, born, born of heats that
cultivated hatred.
Typical for a red craving
& voracity & impulsion & ecstasy.
Those baptised and those were not.
Those with turbans and those without.
Those with different colored-skins.
Some branches were torn down
by the fierce wind.
Arms, teeth mingled in dis-warmed
bodies upon grass.
Until TV commercials for food
turned out to be a bitter dream for anyone.
As green vines encircled the Earth.
Green — The final Judgment Day,
I donned a uniform of Time.
What
the
skull
-god
said.
I heard it.
III
The League of Nations received my report.
They went to Earth.
They marched as fast as the griffins flew.
IV
I walked on the frozen river on Planet R
after doomsday.
Nameless flowers bloomed,
a heavy stone sinking
to the bottom of the lake
with my grief.
My master,
in a yellow flying machine
gazed at the Earth
nothing said.
- Apocalypse-Skull-God - January 29, 2025
