Richard Behrens is a native New Yorker who has had short fiction, poetry and film criticism published in Parabola, Chakra, Forbidden Lines, Planet Magazine, Cinemaphobia, and scores of other small press publications throughout the 80's and 90's. He is currently working as a Web applications developer for one of the largest financial insitutions on the planet. He dreams of one day being what he was ten years ago. Dark Planet is designed and edited by Lucy A. Snyder. If you spot any errors, or if you have any comments, please contact her at lusnyde@cyberus.ca. All materials copyright 1996-1999 by their respective creators. No stories, articles, poems or images from this webzine may be posted or published without the written consent of their creator(s).

A Forest Of Kings by Richard Behrens Let me be worthy of my song Let the green insects trill deep in the ferns and limestone crags Let the jungle throb, hear drums of poems from echo past and tomb beyond where dead kings speak with silence All I see are broken houses and forest rot eating what was once a childhood. Little red-limbed boy once sat lid-eyed in the squat heap and saw the princes parade on concourses and platforms dancing under stars, piercing skin and tongue with the words of the Gods. Monster-faced god once roared scrolls from his reeling tongue and painted his story across the green canopy of the insect woods -- -- now his words are pictures, scream heads and noble noses staring sideways into eternity, into the bubble squared image/word of dead tongues bring the magic down down through the spheres down from the sky into the temple heaps, the tombs, the trees, the standing gods, their topiaries of stone open the portal, Xbalba awaits, the hordes line at the door for entry to the flesh feast of devouring time. If you stare deep enough into the paintless eyes of the tree kings somewhere, beyond words, the pupils dilate and scrolls of only-possible poem speak: "I was, I am here, I will be." And the forest answers death with the monkey shrill of life