Written in mid-2008, this piece is of a genre the poet refers to as densepack, full of sometimes obvious, sometimes obscure references to many, many people and things. One notion by the poet states that there are specific references to no less than 22 different and distinct people in this work.
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welcome to the furnace
the sweet heat in sheets sleets
and glass and brass alike melt
as I smelt a higher order of mettle.
fettle words are not hammered
like Toledo steel, you have to feel
the fire, the desire of a higher order,
a white hot crucible is not a runcible spoon,
and the moon is the antithesis of the sun,
bordering on a consuming consummation
where every derivation in desperation
is just a cheap Chinese knock off
of the designer hearts from the anvil
where people go to blow on their soup
because they say it is too hot
when all the while they need the burn
that turns them inside out to be bride
to a golem still wet from the forge.
the sweat of creation rips apart
all that it touches, in a leper's blood flood.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.