Tristan Robert Lange

Gospel off the Serpent\'s Tongue

The Serpent Shaman—

Standing still, silent—

Shares in a moment,

The seeker acolytes

Affirming the dark medicine.

One leathered leg up,

Knee bent like a black rainbow,

Righeous rebellion lays claim

Atop a monitor—

Distortion now

A whisper—

The morbid mystic is poised,

Their tattooed arms and fingers,

Bearing profound pointed inversion—

A perversion of the pathetic.

Never a demon,

But Satan’s mirror—

Far from anti-Christ,

But Christ’s inverted geist—

The Shaman’s confession,

Consecrated in a moonless mass,

Becomes a ceremonial confessional.

Pain pours profusely

Out of the resurrected professional

Professing the secret

To shedding one’s skin.

The key:

Uncovering the skeletons within.

What purpose does one assign

Their pain?

By keeping it in

What is to gain?

Escape becomes their name—

Such a pitiful shame.

The Shaman used honest magic,

A mushroom cloud explosion,

GIving their disciples

Permission for pain expulsion.

The dark alchemy

Creates an obsidian oracle

Beneath an onyx overhang—

Sacred shelter from

The sacrilegious lambs

Lamenting the fall,

The mercurial descent,

Of their performative power.

Coming back, baby.

The angel spreads its wings.

The age has arrived.

Better things to be born.

© 2025 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.