The Styx Runs Red, pt. 2

by Justin Teoh

Kaneko Tomiyuki, “Vajrabhairava”, 2014, mineral pigments, transparent watercolor, acrylic, pen, foil on Japanese paper, 227×640 cm, Mizuma Art Gallery.

alternative titles: blood meridian by cormac mccarthy, a spiral down asian hate crimes, an argument against singularity (with us in the middle).

If the almighty maketh man as the devil is present,

Then he too shares the white-washed image

He converses through blinding nature where only

The silent put their ears to the ground.

Hear, I gospel the constants of violence.


The sun drains the earth of its lifeblood

And collects the expanse from that altar stone

Out that arched crevice, the miasma

Of crows, of a billowing pile of yellow brown leather,

Coalesced from sweat and entrails and

The communal blood lay where their leathery feet

Trodden pink from talons and minced and fatty grease

Enough to broil all remaining virtue of innocence and

Dissipate in vapor soundless, absolved of all living

Memory, beneath the ancient laughter and the

Young fathers and young sons yet birth and come.


Because that creation seeped through

That commission of shared fortune

That false charisma of scripture sermon’d

That virtue is a two-edged sword

That exploitation from being the devil’s advocate

That adorning of artifacts runs in the family

That being harmless is misconstru’d

That fetishization of purity

That despair is a depthless mirage

That detachment of responsibility

That camouflage from multiple alibis or none

That the engine of his ruin blackens to soil

That sinners sin again

That revelations are a concept made remote

That a full life is to also witness death

That from whence they can

(Because that war is god and game neither heav’n nor hell but the liminal figure eight it occupies where the incarnates are bottomless childes at heart swing grinning aimlessly from hollow’d sockets bubbling with pneumonia from mocking)


Every unholy man once shared a love of nature

And silence is the second blade, holier than thou

To know and destroy everything in dissent

Pray tell, opportunist, what dost thou seek next?