Soot and ashes are the platter from which I dine,
the pool of my flagellation is the outpouring Merlot.
I forget to breathe through the lash,
rending the sackcloth until my nakedness is set before you.

The bells harken, the pendulum keeps time,
my requiem is set by your pulse.
DO NOT dismiss me, DO NOT neglect to
render my salvation in parcels.

Level after level of purgatory the holy grail
I imbibe and drink in ruin.
As the shredding of my skin with filaments of rope,
dislplay a journey of persecutions selfless ardor.

Crouching I beseech, I grovel,
forming steepled hands.
Oh, humble penance
slips my parched tongue and crippled lips.

Sweet King, Soveriegn Lord, Merciful Master,
I cower in my nothingness,
wrapped in the robes of bleak shame.

STILL I PRESS FORTH,
through decadent chambers,
in filth for a glimpse of your being.
For the simple gesture of uttering
your name.

Does your crown sweat with the bulk of my sobs?
To wipe your brow,
smear your worries on my bodice.
Enticing you from your throne to love...
a slave.

I shall never worthy be to step into Eternity.
Where I would walk in Spirit--and behold,
'Our elements resolved to things untold.
A sense o'er all my soul impressed,
that I am weak, yet not unblessed.
But thy soul or this world must fade,
in the frost that binds the dead.
Soft tears of fond regret reveal its smart,
and sorrow, restless sorrow, chills my heart.

Give unto me, made lowly wise,
the spirit of self-sacrifice.
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
my sudden adoration, my Great Love.

Heaven notes the sigh afflicted goodness heaves.
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?

Some things speak out from the shadows.
Whisperings that are fervent and without understanding.
Reader tell me what this is ?
There is only one means of release for me.
Can you not feel it, that single word, that familiar word?
"Alone"…how it reverberates through the narrow
corridors of my veins,
echoing richly between my temples,
with promises of never leaving.

There was agony at first, I admit,
being torn from other creatures like myself.
I must say, transitions are slow in coming,
but the traffic of life faded into nothingness.

The choice was clear,
and made much earlier than expected.
A decision to be,
and become the comrade of such a lonely word.

Oh, how I have forgotten the intricacies of conversation,
but further still the acceptance of touch eludes me.
No matter…does it matter?…
YES it matters, but no one rams against this cage.

Please come and know me,
please in my isolation know this,
that stirring beneath the confines is more.
You must beat against the perception,
until your palms bleed and slowly you slide in defeat.
Defeat being ever so possible,
but because you tried
because I hear your sobs against the wall,
I love you most.

Compare cotton-cumbersome constraining,
from crops that appear planted clouds.
The thread count of the sublime silver,
cascade droplets shimmer and sluice sheer skin.
Weightless, transparent, contours to every curve and plane,
sliding slowly up feet, ankles, calves, thighs, and hips without a snag.
Vowels escape your tongue,
for a moment you are submerged,
in the universal solvent,
the cares of the world merely puddles.

Suspended vocals laid in the cavern of my chest,
where treasures innumerous,
have sunk and there are no maps that travel so deep.

There are scarlet ravages blistered and noxious of things repressed,
they fester and poison,
such beauty as to leave scars.

Sink into this paradigm of suffering, isolation, and idle punishment,
bind it to you like the paintings of a great man,
hollow and pleasant to the unknowing eye.

Leave yourself spent in this cavern,
do not cling to some passing thing.
Purge yourself of lifes' ponderous illusion,
become lifeless like so many before you.

Hunger is the cancer with a cure
bread lines are hiring open mouths.
The discarded pass with empty bellies,
an outstretched hand reaching for crumbs,
that never come.

Money is the panacea of poverty
prostitution wages are tax free.
When she opened her thighs
the world shifted on its axis,
AIDS was paid forward.
Play that on a Trojan commercial.

Freedom is an illusion
painted by white collars.
Section 8 homes are speakeasies
of the downtrodden.
Cardboard boxes are the architects *******,
and trash bin bonfires come calling me.

Leaves cling to branches
pressed among siblings, and
wither in earths' lap.

Radio Transmission---Static
Quantum---Tunneled
Cycle---Depart
End Transmission.

With twists like a dying withered thing,
my senses are dulled,
my senses are dulled.

Vaccumed slowly in a first kiss,
the taste of another is potent;
curious you hold fast.

Spiralled into thick pitch,
envision the veil of a muslim woman,
impenetrable,enfolding.

A form rises and waits in the void,
she prepares to receive, to overcome,
to swallow and consume.

Wooing you, gliding about
whispering to and fro
at once ravished by words,
your presence evokes her.

A substance flows through
puckered moistened lips
inflamed and permeated with longing.

Embraced by ghosts lips,
tangling you, while pecking
at cloak, face and body,
siphoning life.

Tingles upon the flesh,
lend to ******* never quelched.
Her words:
"Delicious mate lounge with me,
partake of my sorrows, my intimacies.
One cannot revel alone, replace
the fickle before you."

You languish; absorbing
pungent flavors.
A masked perfume laced
with sufferings.

This longing gnaws,
within the organs of men.
Beating and pawing
against the tissues of the mind.

Kneading fences around the skull,
encasing it in its grip.
Following forth,
lips will seek
lips,
hips will ****** against
hips,
arms will encircle All.
This net will count its catch
when caught, feeding
the glazed fervor of greed.

Stabbings of hunger
seep from your coiling tongue,
elongating, wrapping around tidbits
served aplenty.

Dainties, morsels, spoonfuls, sips
and bites,
these are the helpings evident between,
chompings, gurgles, and slobberings.
Meat suckled from the passages of your teeth.

Becoming a porpoise thing
without definition, moving layers
of corpulence and indulgence.

Before long, you incite wrath;
your skeletal companion eats you,
a banquet of your own making.

Read me, in the elixir of life,
have a slice of duality pie.
Behind lined ivory,
is someone you call you
and I call me.

Read me, in a tear of sadness,
orbs of memories stored
in genetic madness.

Read me, in the dog-eared page
the leaf that quiets my mind
and makes me whole again.

Read me, in my racing thoughts
bipolar existence is more difficult
than not.

Read me, in the grip of melancholy
revisit the wrist scars
of folly.

Read me, in the breastplate of armor
the era of my belief
in chivalry and honor.

Read me, in the time of sepia
tradition fueled
by dreams and dementia.

Read me, in the tip of a candles flame
passions burn bright,
yet I wear no others name.

Read me, at the foot of an altar
murmuring prayers, "...lead my paths..."
or I will falter.

Read me, in an open palm
outstreched, open to you
and calm.

Read me, in the fools smile
the joy will last
only a while.

Read me, in the clear walkway
steps number
all my days.

Read me, in the shattered glass
anger subsides
down to simmer and it will pass.

Read me, in the inkwell bright
the pen has punctured me
felled by might.

Read me, in the moonlight there
lie to me,
tell me you care.

Stricken from crown to chin.
Make the gag cover my vocal spin.
Let the earplugs cut my hearing thin.
A blindfold ******* to my temples let no sight in.
The archangel whispers through the din.
" Is it better to die than to sin ? "

Waging a feud on GREED is high.
Painted enemies, " ENVY !!! " they cry.
With a lance ****** for LUST, its point never dry.
To lean on SLOTH for a maidens sigh.
She served soldiers GLUTTONY pie.
Wine flowed freely and WRATH comes nigh.
PRIDE laughs with dagger at your backside.
The archangel growls, " To sin is to die."

Behold my confessional appointed slot.
Forgive me Father, for I knew not.
Be merciful to me, O God, for I cannot.
Why am I forsaken, to such common lot ?
Peace be still... delivered in a resounding shot.
Death is better than sin, my last thought.

Your pity is a cheap thing, I realize injurious truth
tattooed on pale canvas are illustrations
I should have never seen
and without bending I display them
on the outside of me.

Your pity is a cheap thing, I wiped myself clean
stinking of rancid perfume, oh former lovers
spectres that plague my bedsheets
when I'm beneath you saturated
by the outside of you inside of me.

Your pity is a cheap thing, I sizzled against you
whirlwind speech absorbed in clutch pillows
moisture betraying my timid refusal.
What is it that I can't beat
the power in you, subduing me.
You only pity things that come cheap.

Buzzing alarms, striking eight o' clock with a plan,
Dressed pin-striped so I can meet " The Something Men".
Among them are the monotones that pierce no silence.

Reaching, SLAMMING on the clock a bit past ten,
Shedding feelings that hardly I can mention.
Patent leather hitting Own St., and I opened my briefcase at Soul Plaza.

Waking before the city lights close their eyes,
Deciding between the instant oatmeal or corporate bath.
Never will industry keep watch on me, I keep my own ******* time.

Words
The play of a quick witted tongue entertains, while the cry of the mute deafens the crowd.

Moonlight
The moon is the imperfect diamond which gifts the enamored with shades of light to fulfill spectrums of physical union.

Silence
Like the protection of a mothers womb it is the cocoon before ideas metamorphisis

Embed in me the carcass of my infancy
Propel me like the shadings of faded beginnings
You fathered me upon the ravages of futility
Distended by landscapes of time inconstant
Stuttering mindless oblivions in the vacuum of destiny
See me here …You the one they call Sovereign
I gush beneath the onslaught of your outpouring
A steady depletion of obscure remembrances in my devastated soul
Wrist opened so that my life may somehow return to its origin
Scaling the porcelain that shatters with inner screams
Prepare in this sacred moment a pearl upon the cheek of sacrifice
Like claws from the lowest regions scrape the walls of existence
I powerlessly praise the one casting me into the accursed

Heroes, processed in baths of blood,emerge spotless,
Oaths lanced on battered helmets and dirt dusted fatigues, the Hand of God upon the lawless,
Never let the barrel lay its head to an enemy, the shell casings remain fixed and fearless,
One solitary act propels man to sacrifice, it is still, timeless,
Remember the mark is invisible, carried on fitted sheet flags, to us, faceless.

FATE! Father's precious time to me
Within you; in me
hearing, undeviating the constancy of weak wishes.

Remember the house?
Oh! Excellent days and nights
saying no to your attachment.

Sooner could the years pass
relive each word
how my slipping dress must look.

Indeed, none watched but you
by the river slick, wet, and gone
listen to my pulse alone.

Even with the voice of spirit others
such primal need has been
when laid that flat to it.

Something broke and He overpowers
when her heart kissed freely
Death too brought its inconstant love.

Winter blasts,shrieking as pierced crystal in moonlight,
her figure trembles by the brinks edge.
Striking the center of her mind was a lost knight,
grabbing her sobs with tears frozen midcheek, before free falling from the ledge.

Spring, she wished to forget, when maid and man met,
stolen glances,verbal advances, a skins breach of indecency.
A single solitary evening was set, a tryst between Lachlan and Lizbet,
a tangled two caught in treasonous secrecy.

Blistering and bold, the summer, unforgiving,
imprisoned Lizbets' waist increases.
Lachlans' fate--no longer with the living,
a Lord may punish adultery as he pleases.

Fall, where all surrender to die,
a babe forced out silent, the demise of labors hope.
Barely clad the woman lingered, as did her lie,
the sentence one of repugnance and a length of hanging rope.

To fringe with padded lengths
the entirety of your outershell,
and thereby judged
sent into the wastelands
a labour of love.
A slave.

I claim no liberty.
Endow me with cuffs
and porcelain chains that bind,
servant to master.

Intertwined in folly
belying your aloofness
violent whips divulge your essence
we both lay shredded.

You do not spare me,
though my eyes invite you openly.
Instead you surround me,
walk before me,
and ply your wares with others.

Sickened I fall,
clawing against stone and neck anchor,
beating my heart into the walls of my longing.

You reprove me,
bidding for silence,
or the little I get will be lost.

They are dying, she is dying,
I pray that she does, but I don't want to watch.

The door was barred, perhaps from letting life in,
or maybe letting death out.

Down the hall all the doors are open, and decomposition hits you,
in all its stages like a film reel.

Her room was by the dying one, my ears perched along the doorframe
and listened.

She was like a prophet, and upon her altar she screeched,
"DIE...DIE...DIIIIIIE!" I think she is right.

The passage continues and all around the images are swept,
left under soiled carpets and linens, hundreds of them.
They carry the dead away, but the scent lingers like cheap perfume,
a priceless perfume.

There's that silence again, the one I like you know? Yes, it covers your head like the goodbye sheets.
Objects get wider and clearer, life is ****** into a needles eye,
the view is breathtaking.

It's simple; breathing is simple, even on that machine its oh so simple.
That's how you live and tell your stories to the people on the television show because they have the time to listen.

There is no one else here. Except me, watching you and waiting.
I can't stay here with you. I have to share my visit with those running out on their clocks.

I know you see me when they give you your medicine,
somewhere between awake and asleep.
I'm glad you don't turn away, so many of you turn away.

Mildred two doors down said goodbye, she was a hard case.
I came and she cried, she cried some more and then she gurgled.
She heard me collect her memories and she said she understood.
A smile before her eyes rolled back forever.

Today is special for you Tom, you and I have gotten to know each other.
I am going to miss the way you welcomed me in, just like a star.
You are one of the bright ones, and you faded slow.
Those silly screens are messing up our act, Tom.

The ladies are running past me, they don't even see.
They are trying to keep you going with life you don't need.

I saved you til' the end, and right along the breeze,
I hear you thanking me.

The bone corset strengthens backbone,
offers the fine figure encased in rustled sewn midnight skies.

Tap and swish and sway, the heat increases,
drawing near
arms extended.

A babys' grip surrounds the scrolled neck,
feathers graze in awe, wonder, delight, and tension ignite.

You look so tenderly at carved perfection,
a specter you were before it,
your soul combines with reddened varnish.

Enmeshed you two make the nether gates open,
Welcoming, sweet, harmonic balms.

Rosin soaked fingers,
the testament of your decadent affairs.
You breathe, it sighs, moan before her and hear her cry.

Futile it is to control the sirens song,
inhale the vibrations artfully wrenched from the f-holes.
Holdfast to the bow,
lest you be lost in between the spaces of spun string.