Poetry: Fhen M

Fhen M.

Cerberus and a Knight

He drank countless bottles of beer

cold night after cold night, 

he drowned himself in serbesa

until his bloodstream ran with it.

In a frozen, grimy wasteland 

ground cracked beneath layers of ice and dirt

Soni is a bottle of beer 

clutched in the claws of a giant hound 

his blood is what Cerberus thirsts to drink.

I am the knight-poet,

with a chainmail coif and helmet,

I wield a scythe, a bottle opener,

serrated, sharp, and soon,

Soni the drunkard, your time is near.

***

Balete Tree

She sleeps soundly, 

beside her, a thick rope lies coiled.

Sprawling branches, aerial roots, 

wide, shaded canopy

Jona is a Balete tree.

Her face on the tree trunk

harpies perch on the bough 

like a woodpecker drilling holes.

The Balete trees are in The Wood 

of the Self-Murderers by William Blake.

The sap is blood 

flowing through the dark woods.

***

Gustave Doré's Wood Engraving 

Sky of nimbostratus 

a rocky, cliff-like edge 

overlooking a red river.

Viscous liquid swirling 

with the weight of countless lives lost.

The blood flows like a dark, relentless tide, 

The river's surface seems to churn and seethe.

Eliot and Arthur descend to a ring,

like a rice pond field of a rice terraces,

and see the river of blood of

Gonzalo Mariano, Darwin Dormitorio, 

Horacio Castillo, Leonardo Villa…

Half-human and half-horse creatures

stand guard on the riverbank

armed with bows, arrows, and paddles.

They shoot at souls of D'Pogi

(look, he’s in tears and agony)

and his fellow fratmen 

whenever they try to rise 

too far out of the blood.

***

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Setu, November 2025