A Fugue in Four Parts
I. The Unquiet
A continuous groaning moaning hum
A yawning dawning daily breath
Oscillating frequencies signal the impending cataclysm
Triggering a subterranean tipping point
The landscape rumbles slides and quakes
The oceans rise toss crash and tumble
Storms explode spinning lashing thrashing scraping
The surface returns to a prehistoric age
Life resumes in a carbon dioxide-rich calm
Birdsong insect chirr rushing river water falls
Reptiles and amphibians both immense and seismic
Mammals the new fossil record
Beneath the umbrella of burgeoning vegetation
A host of surviving generations hide
Listening watching hunting gathering
Just another notch on Nature's food chain
II. Transfigured Night
A quiet symphony composed beneath the starlit night
Tempo changes on a cellular level in sandy pit and rocky den
The cool clamoring becomes an orchestrated gathering
A communal cacophony ready to spill out onto the wasteland
Species born in the crucible of environmental toxicity
Climbing genetic ladders despite weaknesses in their DNA strands
Creatures once designed to accommodate Nature's worst conditions
Reappear as latent codes unlock releasing them from their biological cages
Heavy footsteps that feel like the distant rumble of thunder
Vulgar cries and discordant shrieks punctuate the night air
The new day brings no Rite of Spring no Morgenstimmung
The world has become an unending Verklärte Nacht
Evolutionary violence sings the song of survival
The shudder of vine-laden parks the ripple of flooded transit tunnels
All will be forced to face their own personal coda
A cymbal crash at the end of a dark thunderous movement
III. Arcadia
The damp parade of ozone and petrichor
The dry delirium of wood char and decomp
A smokey haze blankets a sea of mist
The air becomes a perfumed aphrodisia
The heady stews of salt marsh and swamp land
The vegetable rot of thawed permafrost
Ecological annihilation bequeaths a bouquet of antecedents
Orchids magnolias lilies and corpse flowers
A fragrant still life of pollinators and metabolites
Poisonous petals and slip noose vines
Needled shoots and razor-edged blades
Host for the next generation of winged swarms
Communal blooms line massive forests
An aromatic bulwark of sustained symbiosis
Sanctuary for the frail and the repentant
Scent masks from roaming voracious leviathans
IV. Anima
Alone among the stars at night
With God's pale eye staring down
A dream of anima awakens
The wolf the bear the lion
Evolutionary leaps are not exclusive
Even the frail and repentant are fair game
In time the hairy beast the clawed killer
Emerge like spirits trapped in dead bodies
Intelligence skill and adaptation
With a sense of purpose beyond the self
The primitive drumbeat and the philosopher's stone
Working together toward creation
A new world built upon the bones of the old
A vicious ruthless cycle of reproduction
All eyes on a future ingrained in our psyche
A race toward the next oblivion
-- Kurt Newton's writings have appeared in APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL's Strange Skies/Weird Worlds special presentation,
God's Cruel Joke, Mouthfeel, Tower Magazine, The Fabulist, and Cafe
Irreal. 2023 saw two chapbook collections of his published by back room poetry: A Troubled Sleep and The Ever-Evolving Alphabet. A third
chapbook, animals, was published earlier this year, also from back room
poetry.