I have come to the temple
Of your body.  I kneel and prey
Like a sinner.  The holy water
Beads low on your forbidden
Tabernacle, sears my touch
In cleansing flame, what I do
And what will be done is all
For unrepentant confessions
And penances.  Let me truly
Learn the sacraments of flesh
Before I bathe in your wicked
Innocence and commit my sin
At being mortal in your nimbus
Chambers, let the mercies rain
After the fall of my fellowing
Creature, for this night is blood
Sabbath, and sacrilege under
A Pagan moon and let the dawn
In the rising sun of mute morning
Be my absolution, our benediction,
Let the moving waters enfold us,
Pure as lambs, as washed babes,
Baptismal.

Gangsta

I'm the gangsta who can rap,
give me **** and on your face I'll crap.
I'm the gangsta who is white,
you all know my rhymes are tight.
I'm the gangsta who calls the shots,
inside my head are tiny blood clots.
I'm the gangsta who will kick your ***,
show me respect, or I'll take you to class.
I'm the gangsta who does no wrong,
only the good stuff, goes into my big ****.
I'm the gangsta who needs no gun,
carrying a pen is much more fun.
I'm the gangsta loved by all,
black people call me the chosen cue ball.
I'm the gangsta who needs no posse,
hating people who are to **** bossy.
I'm the gangsta who poses no threat,
always broke and knee deep in debt.
I'm the gangsta who likes living,
never forgets, but sometimes forgiving.
I'm the gangsta who doesn't care,
walking around in my stained underwear.
I'm the gangsta who can't sing,
but if I bite, it will sting.
I'm the gangsta like no other,
if you don't believe, just ask my mother.

The rose is obsolete
but each petal ends in
an edge, the double facet
cementing the grooved
columns of air—The edge
cuts without cutting
meets—nothing—renews
itself in metal or porcelain—

whither? It ends—

But if it ends
the start is begun
so that to engage roses
becomes a geometry—

Sharper, neater, more cutting
figured in majolica—
the broken plate
glazed with a rose

Somewhere the sense
makes copper roses
steel roses—

The rose carried weight of love
but love is at an end—of roses

It is at the edge of the
petal that love waits

Crisp, worked to defeat
laboredness—fragile
plucked, moist, half-raised
cold, precise, touching

What

The place between the petal’s
edge and the

From the petal’s edge a line starts
that being of steel
infinitely fine, infinitely
rigid penetrates
the Milky Way
without contact—lifting
from it—neither hanging
nor pushing—

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space

Build me a temple made of gold
Worship me like gods of old
Promise the oceans and the sea
That you commit, eternally
Serve my needs above all else
Abandon any shred of self
Seal this covenant with a ring
And I will be your everything