Butterfly Pestilence Poem by Norman F. Santos

Under a rubber tree and her spangling hair
Beneath her canopy and the aberrant flair
A cavalcade of lambent orbs in an aerial parade
The Mardi Gras drifted shambling in a masquerade
The lantern in my hands combed by the whisper
Of the night’s lips, a goodnight kiss from a mother
Scrawny fingers, let loose of the groping crevasse
Of the lantern and it will slither in the maladroit haze
The hoarfrost of departure beguiles the arrival
Of the winged executrix of the influx of a carnival
With passion beneath her wings of different potions
Beneath a rubber tree, generating proportions and distortions
Perch daintily on my open fists of iron and cinder
And quell the arresting scent of perpetual amber
With the splendors of your demagogic delinquency
And the pixie powders bearing the solvency
The hungry mouth in the burl of the rubber tree
Will consume me from beneath her canopy
Until my hands fold like a butterfly
When it release the lantern and clinch the behemoth’s cry.