Ink drops black, my soul infecting
Into water invading purity
Foreign substance contradicting
Clarity clouding, dark arching tentacles
Swirling about, twirling twisting
Depictions tempting
Hanging
In grotesque formation
Beautiful in their horror
Entrancing in their mingling

Each drop fresh transgression
My life’s cup growing darker
Liquid limbs of the ****** flailing
A dance of warning—that
I should become one of them if not
To filter disease of this breath

Faces
Fluid forming in inky swirl
Screaming, crying my name
Those here before me
Warning of my impending damnation
Singing anguish
Their tears impotent to cleanse
The stain that is my life

To undo that so long ago done
A power to remove the tint of my soul
Considered endlessly
If there be a time too late for
Men whose lives were spent foolishly
Their warning unheeded
Threat becoming promise pending
Hope’s defeat
A threat of doused despair

Favour despite nightmare’s creeping
An infant born
Filling cup further though
Not with night but with love
Salvation’s sacrifice
Understood, seen in the tiny smile
Of a child