Ekphrasis

This world is one of boarders brimming with life and mystery.

Only the fiery, red sky is untamed and unyielding as it bleeds in to each figure’s careful frame.

Even the colossal indigo, six-armed being struggles against his walls.

His mouth gapes open and bleeds into his second face’s manic grin, as if ripped in two.

All eyes peer outward, vivid against his night-like flesh, and looking as wild as his

many

gesturing

hands.

His palms are scarlet having either touched the bloody fire, or put it there themselves.

White wings peak through, unscathed and pure against the red, and notify those around him of his supremacy.

As does the crown on his head and how steady it remains even as his body stretches to reach every corner of his domain,

A world that is filled with ready subjects.

His fingers curl and point, holding them in their places.

Animals and beings hurry to column and row themselves around him, small and blooming color from behind their walls.

Those below him pose on their horses, whose feet quiver with the readiness of deprived motion.

Do they want to run? They cannot, frozen by such a dance, the thundering of feet. The horses are spooked by the thick scent of blood.

Those beside him dance like the blue being,

six-armed mimics

striving 

outward, 

some almost touching their own crimson boarders, towards him, longing to be closer.

Even the animals mirror the blue being’s heavy, wild gaze with the sharpness of their profile and beaks.

Those above him sit frontward with a sense of serenity that pillows their own boarders. Can they feel the chaos below?

Their eyes remain closed to it, and

light

radiates

outward,

Haloing their head and disrupting the bloody walls in a way that even the blue being’s golden crown cannot.

They are the reason the blue being’s dance, the force behind such frantic motion. Their peace ends at there halos, never tricking down to reach blue being, who now appears like their puppet on six strings.

All are distant from the blue being,

blocked away from his throne and unable to crane their neck to watch his massive body move or his ornate dress sway.

Only his attendants, who sit at his feet, can bare to feel their master’s closeness, hands clasped in awe or fear, feet drawn together tightly so as not to disrupt him or his dance.

His dance. Bloodier than the fire-red walls, is what silences those who surround him. His dance answers for his crimson palms.

Pliant bodies

splay

outward

below his feet.

They form a fleshy, even ground from his weight.

Those beside him, who mimic his dance, mimic his purpose, too.

Each possess their own silent human, so colorless and slim compared to themselves. They dance on their cooling skin.

All

eyes 

peer 

outward,

as frozen as the bodies that lie dead.

(23 March, Kru Coffee. --- Valjarkila of the Eight Pronouncements. Tibet, c. late 13th century, pigment on cloth, collection of Michael and Beata McCormick)