Many

For the dark gods are many:

            They give birth to themselves,
            metastatic, suckling blood.

They hold court in a gleam of bones,

            open to shadows. Wired upright,
            they cannot fall.

Neither this nor that, they evade catalogue.

            They curse with gnarled finger,
            deepening time-scoured runes.

Leafless, their trees lack season,

            lifting monochrome jags,
            lichen-scale stippled.

Their followers fear and fall prostrate:

            Dust, they mouth dust.
            They irrigate dryness with terror.

The dark gods preside, indifferent,

            rasping blade across whetstone,
            readying stained altars.