I was there the day Chaos
was born: bastard out of Oklahoma.
the Great Plains breed these rag-tail
sons of bitches like shady businessmen
breed money-heavy bad deals, and
this deal could be the worst of them all.
Deception was his mother's name:
to all appearances sweet and mild,
cycling into another beginning,
bright and beautiful to behold
lady in waiting, waiting...impatient for lovers
to violate her and impregnate her,
filling her empty womb with savage life.
Heat was the first who came calling
and he enveloped her
neatly, trapping her in a tight
embrace from which she could not escape
and he tormented her body like an oppressive fever
and left her sweltering,
dripping with sweat.
It was then that Breeze
entered the scene, following
closely on the heels of Heat-
so they both shared her bed
stirring her passions. In this moment
her First Children were
born: white and chubby-cheeked.
smaller, subtler indications
of the greater labor to come
Afterward her next lovers: Energy and
Entropy crushed her beneath them
in a violent fury of assault
she cried out in protest and in pain
but they held her fast, penetrated her depths,
rising and thrusting,
thrusting and rising
in a swirling frenzy
to the place where her Children
rushed together and Amalgamated,
leveled off: flat, dark-skinned and boiling
and shuddering with intensity,
the rape nearly complete
The collective mind of Amalgamation
stirred. It rippled, crackled and seethed.
and Mother's ripe belly continued to swell
as the Amalgamation grew there
along with the Bastard Child, who
was waking slowly
from his slumber.
Mother was nearly obliterated
by them all and they hung heavy and damp and brutal,
thick with ripening entropy
In the nether region of the Amalgamation
a furious tide could no longer be stemmed
and on the underside, as black-green Mammatus bubbled
with Energy, moisture-laden breasts to suckle a hungry beast,
at that moment
a vortex was forced open and
born into the world was Absolute Horror
a hideous breech birth, branching out
bleeding down from above
touching the tentative tendril of its
God-awful tail to earth, digging in with massive, clutching claws
beginning his short, violent life with a wail
that sounded as if booming
from the depths of Hades.
And thus the Bastard, Chaos, was born
and he bore many, many other names
as well: Apocalypse and Armageddon,
they called him Ahriman and Azhi Dahaka,
Kalki, the Destroyer, on his solemn steed
the snake of Midgard, rising from Ragnarok
poisonous and drunk from the blood of gods
and Charon, the boatman, ferrying death and
destruction, as icy-hard stones
rain down in torrents
to cover broken land like dead men’s eyes,
Celaeno, the dark one, and her evil sisters
swiftly churning, End-Of-All-Things and Judgement Day.
Chaos bore all of these names
and he bore them well, but not for long.
but while he reigned over the plains,
all things fell and were crushed before him...
plant, animal, bark and steel...
all were consumed by his ravenous maw,
masticated and spit out into the roiling air.
Even brick and concrete block
felt the pain of his passing.
and the people who were out of doors only
felt a growing uneasiness and heard
screaming thunder as he approached,
a rain-wrapped and terrible vision
they could not see.
For thirty minutes he rained down death
and it took another thirty for him to die,
the cycle closing down, a calming inward intake of breath
as Mother opened up her arms and the bastard
roped out and ascended back into her bosom,
becoming gray and harmless once more
waiting for another day, rife with heat and breeze,
energy and entropy, the four-corners that
make up the Alley Proper, to breed another
Bastard out of Oklahoma.
