Seventeen

Today I listened to death metal instead of black metal.
Death metal dudes like to call black metal dudes "fags."
What can you do.

The guitars got beefy.
The riffs got excellent.
The drummer is totally fucking sick.

Returning Incantation's Primordial Domination to its case
after a good morning's drive in its thrall,
I ran across Roars from the Old Serpent's Paradise,

the only Drastus full-length to date.
Its cover is red and black.
It beckoned:

as who, out of a world
secretly apart from both the one we all live in
and from the Ohio death metal one I'd spent the day in,

would materialize all of a sudden,
displaying its singular qualities
like a champion rooster

a champion rooster
with a hurt leg
and absolutely nothing to lose.