Poetry by Koray Birenheide

Atop the Ziggurat

I am in the darkness,

I cannot find my child,

I feel the end time's black kiss

- If only she has made it

Back into the light...

A million, million eyes are turning

away now from my face

away now from my daughter

- to make her lost

make her afraid

Nimious nimbi nevermore

Light lustrous, luminous galore

The babble bawling blistering,

reverberating words of yore

Assault my ears like claxon shrieks

Beyond the real world's bleeding leaks

Quizzaciously they scream her name,

for dead tongues, dead ones are fair game

Away now! From my daughter!

She lies atop the ziggurat

Her pale face beckons from within

The cracks along my soul so that

The empty shell sheds kin to kin

And old ones, older than the steps

Have feasted on the animas

Of broken ones, with weary heads,

And on her blood like lamias

Is every quivering last breath I take

To prolong her life, ultimately, a mistake?