by Ciro Soleda
Avian of the yard, awake — open your adorned eyes
Beneath the jagged, barbed border of your
Cherry-bright crest: caruncle, crimson red.
Discharge your drastic daytime decree,
Explosive, expulsive envoy, ejector of stars.
Sullen forage I frugally offer;
Gallant Giro, you gulp with grateful gusto.
Handsome herald of the hollow hours,
Ideal invoker, incendiary, invincible
Judge of the joust! Jovian in the fray:
Lyrical, you launch your lethal flail:
Martial mandoble, at the Mulato martyr.
Night newly born, you—nested nexus—
Offer yourself, opaque, to the omnipotent occident.
Pennon folded to the patient presage,
Quietude and querencia acquiesce your quivering qualm.
Ciro Soleda is a young poet whose work explores myth, memory, and queer identity. He seeks to bridge classical tradition with contemporary experience, hatching intimate landscapes where the personal and the universal meet, ever pecking at the boundaries of language.