One should be wary of too many showers;
of too much soap and shampoo.
The brutal water only bead on clean
and naked skin; after the shell
of dust and dirt and hell is wiped away.
The fogged mirror filters off
God, and leave half-finished marble
cracked and sickly soft.
When the hot water is cut and coldness
thrusts you into the light,
the air feels new and harsher
than the grime ever did.
One should beware being too clean.

My brain is a furnace burning
in a skull plated so thick in steel
you can't feel its heat but by
the back of your hand.
Stoked in a mother's breath
and father's hand, flame flickers
along spectral bands as the wick,
once taught and thickly tied,
turns to grains of ash. In the midst
of incendiary heat and blinding
doubt, beats my heart and counts
its time with spouts of
madness.

I am a cannibal.
I savor men’s fine taste
and snap up scrawny skulls;
Spent bodies left to waste.

But do not hoard your children.
Their flesh is far too sweet,
Innocently tendered and
Often curdling in the heat.

Age is my marinade,
It greases flesh like wine
Soaked and smoked in scarlet
With broken, twisted spines

And I am not alone.
Though they may feel otherwise
Since though I eat your body
The heart’s their only prize.

Do you hear me weeping,
Creeping during the night?
Sigh deep when I am sleeping
But you’re always in their sight.

This will be my final song:
With no chorus planned to follow
Nor daggers sharpened to a point
Or the fired forge to bellow.
For when no one needs a blacksmith
The brazen god’s teeth flicker
Alights the hammer’s handle
And spreads marigold flame to wicker.
The steel alone will shudder
And miss the smithy’s call
With no rage to fall upon them
To etch their egos small.

If ever once my words took flight
may this song now break their wings.
Snap the hollowed chicken bones
and scatter feathers to the wind.
As sun bakes dry the loam and silt
while tigers prey on lambs,
I find your love less
filling than
some godly preacher’s scam.

A bird stopped-
Mid-air, died, and dropped
With no brave heart to catch it.
While the thunder rolled
And crashed and broke
And lit the grey-green scene;
As time and sky fell as one
To split sweet sanity.

Where once I sought ambition,
I now seek only bone:
Aged fine with wine volition
And cracked and ground with stone.

I cut my teeth,
and lick my lips on your *******
in that awkward, ending light.
Our heavy breaths trade back,
and forth multi-syllabic moans
as pinpricks of metaphor
with unsure thrusts of rhyme
consume the summer, humid night
to leave us voiceless, with minds
grasping for wet, deep words.