Fomentation

[Tanner]

When the nomenclatures
Of darkness are laid bare
And the scaffolding of dreams collapses
Surely as you forage in the ruins
Thick dust collecting
In the throat like a swarm of locusts
It is then that your voice tremulous at best
Ravaged by past sin finds few words
To acquit itself at the
Altars of complexity briars abound and scratch
Your torso as if you were
Manhandled by vagabonds derelict and voracious
Who emerge from the thicket

Is aloe the necessary healing balm you need
Or is another elixir more close
At hand

[RhymeLovingWriter]

Luscious word choices - check; melodic, meandering phrasing - check; punctuated by reflective conclusion - check! Tanner - this is a longer work than some you've posted, but sings and even stings in all the right places.

[rhymetime]

I love the way you put this verse together. I reads so easily and smoothly. It gives me thoughts and images but I can't seem to define them.

thanks for the challenge.

[Suz-zen]

those first 3 lines blew me away!

wonderful Tanner

[grant hayes]

This is searingly powerful, Tanner. So much musicality and arresting imagery.

nomenclatures
Of darkness

Thick dust collecting
In the throat like a swarm of locus(ts)

Manhandled by vagabonds derelict and voracious

You wear well the hat of lexical wizardry. Kudos!!!

[Tanner]

Grant, thanks for the clerical reset for locus/locusts. As an aside, in my first month in Kabul Afghanistan in July 1962 there was a locust invasion, flash flood and 6.4 earthquake. As a teenager I thought, this looks like an ominous and scary place. a lot of weird stuff is happening.

[grant hayes]

Biblical proportions, Tanner. To have been in such a land at such a formative age: the kind of life experience that demands to lead to poetry.

[MHenry]

Personification, simile, and metaphor put to good use here, Tanner.