Sad reflections from
donated dreams.
Charity's
fallen embers.
Like a high UV index
they burn right into
your skin.
Freckling
your thoughts with a bit of compromise.

Close your eyes
to the possibility
inertia
has made itself at home.
You'll feel it, feel it
right to the bone.
But you crossed that bridge
long ago.
In the time of
tranquil misgivings.
You gave consent to
sin by offering up
your sons and daughters.
Drowning them
in the shallow end of dissipated water.

Sing hymns
all you like.
Piety
is not for sale.
And the angel light
that hits the wall
is not in the shape of Mary.
Evil always figures into
these things.
Don't you know? Heat rises. Blood falls.

So burn your prayers
on a stick. Roast them
in the campfire. You'll never turn
to God until you lie
dying. Broken and heaving.
Asking for forgiveness.
Which a man of cloth
will grant.
Such a charmed life to leave.

Only it's a cheat.
A spoonful
of circumvention.
Making you feel
warm and clever
as you bleed out. Regrettably,
your vacuous heart
sailed off on the Greta Garbo
and mortgaged
your future for such marquee.
Banking on the
here and now.
From this there can be no redemption.

Reality is so unreliable. In the water of life we surf the wave of chance. Rise or fall as hunters in the snow. The isolating future is already here. But people are still people, they still need each other. The anachronistic branch of knowledge we are dedicated to - the day in, day out - is a deluded science. It is we who would be the objects of enquiry and fascination to an alien mind. Humanity is the true wonder, the true miracle.

home is a cage
slide out the window
find a different way
run with the wolves
chase the child

it won't always be like this
ceramic heart
cosmic bruise
lovesick in a hotel wildfire

chemistry begins with
orbiting the moon
he calls her a river

swallowing down mistakes
she cares a little less about everything now

blood on the mattress
young blood

breaks in the sun
mean pure dark is yet to come
--nightly things

as long as she gets by
despite the crushing weight of gravity
she will take swan feathers
and wedding days to bed

but never take the blame

Beneath the arch,
        among the branches,
      the maunder of her eyes
           finds noir in an afterimage,
every reflection is unique,
    explicit and indivisible,
        every reflection is her,
      there she looks close
       for gracefulness,
            in the essays of her skin
               and their brazen transparencies,
         she enters into her body fable,
      the shape of her resembles
           the tenor viol: where it widens,
                  where it narrows,
                where it digresses
              and monochromes,
           she reflects a fragile geography,
             a soft cargo, but
               an inkling of hurricane,
             rendering the fault lines
          beautiful and strong,
       in supplication tomorrow's explorer
will disturb the patterns
   until she's become her own lullaby