The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Terrific Magics

Among the crowd of gregarious beasts
that slap a back with chortled grins
opining upon the pleasantries of passersby 
there wander warlocks unrecognized 
conjurers of unimaginable abominations
masters of thralls unaware of their own apostasy
the greater of these cast kind shadows
don themselves in the magnificence of beneficence
so that even the crier can raise no alarm
taken seriously enough to burden anyone with actions
needed to frighten away demonic aberrations.

Yet look into their eyes and your soul will fall
from its comfortable conceptions and carefully
erected scaffolding of beliefs crisscrossing beliefs
for rafters make better bonfires bringing a fever
hot enough to shrivel in horror the shrouds 
that hide the unforgivability of sins and excesses
consumed from a neighbor's larder unlent
but allow the sheep to remain unshorn and 
keep your shimmer under a hood less misunderstood
and speak in humble syllables with a simple smile
and feign to forget the numeral incantations 
that prescribe tomorrow's ellipse of cataclysms.
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