Flying Island

The Pale Horse by Alex Schnur Death comes not upon a pale horse, but riding on a blood clot, prowling through an artery. It hides in piles of filth and the insides of microbes, on the wings of birds and the dust of a coal mine. Death waits in the wings of our vices, swirling in the bottoms of bottles perched upon cigarettes packed into pills dripping from needles and homogenized into trash food. It lurks in the oceans, both the shallows and the depths. It waits on the mountains, in both snow and stone. Sometimes death takes to stage and you see it coming, dramatically, as fast or as slow as it likes. Other times death is a thief, quick as lightning, and before you can hear the thunder your life is gone. About the poet: Alex Schnur is currently working to achieve a bachelor's degree in English from Indiana University - Purdue University Columbus, with a concentration in creative writing. He only refers...