Landscapes burst in wild conversation,
Red poppies sway with intoxication,
Rivers explode from the underground,
Their heads swerving with horns.
Fountains of fish soar upward surveying the air,
A cleft opens revealing walls of the bound,
Sober-suited men hang on in the cyclone
Unleashed by sequined cycling vestals and the
Buzz of nymphs swarming for honey,
Smeared on rocks and lintels,
As a snake scaled with shadow and
Painted with an androgyne’s face slips quietly by,
Seen by few but presaging the foundation of
A new city, seething with books and wine.

[Michael Routery is a writer and poet living in Northern California. His work can be found in a wide variety of publications, including Beatitude: 50, Datura, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina devotional anthologies, Written In Wine, Bearing Torches, Unbound, and Out of Arcadia. ]