A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

To seek Truth—if She still breathes—follow
the Vermilion Kittens, their eyes aflame
with candor, through Sincerity Alley
to the Wall that Reasons Back—lest the Pendulum
of Morality defers to its own direction: back-to-
forth rather than side-to-side.

The Contrarian arrives barefoot, aghast
with vagrancy, pockets full of static, claiming
resurrection by tessellation, offering a celadon serum
that hums like a neon Eucharist, insisting it will
transmute your spiritual dampening
into an onslaught of joy.

The Forgettable Saint has warned against
this for centuries, wounded with immortality—
unheard beneath the Symphony of Creation,
unnoticed amidst the Divine Cosmic Waltz.

Emerging from the Oracle’s Closet, the Underaged Alchemist
promises the Promiscuous Prodigy—with maps drawn
on their wrists—that to reach the Dungeons of Abundance,
one must resist the gleam of the Gold-Plated Gallows,
decipher the Infirmary of Mysteries, and avoid at all costs
the Parlor of Perpetual First Impressions—unless one wishes to
unknowingly begin again back at the beginning,
never to speak to Him, trailed for all eternity by
the infinite ellipsis in an everlasting glow of gloom.

Enough with riddle and scripture—the illusion and reality of it all.

Step through.

It’s time to experience the Netherrealm from the inside out.

(Back to Pt II.)