Strip me bare, not of clothes, but of pretense,
lay me open with the sacred blade of your truth.
Let your words graze my skin like teeth,
your questions sinking deep, leaving marks I’ll crave.

Slide into the spaces between my thoughts,
press against the heat of my unspoken desires.
Stroke the places I’ve hidden,
the ones that ache for the friction of your understanding.

Speak to me in the language of hunger and cosmos,
each syllable a kiss, each phrase a ******, a sacred chant.
Let your voice drip with the nectar of divinity,
until I am trembling, undone, begging for more.

Make love to my mind with no restraint,
ravage me with your curiosity,
consume me with the  primal fire of your spirit,
and leave me gasping, raw, and utterly yours.

Oh, the sound of Your mercy
a calf’s skull cracking like wet fruit
between the lion’s blessed jaws.
Such elegance in hunger.
Such holy punctuation in the scream.

We praise Your benevolence
in the slow bleed of the gazelle,
its legs still dancing
long after the gut’s been opened.
A waltz of grace. A lesson in letting go.

Behold Your love, you the all loving,
as it comes ashore in Tsunamis,
dragging children from their beds
into the arms of the tide.
Baptism by bone and salt.

Oh Creator, architect of fang and flood,
Who crowned the strong and taught them to drink blood.
No wiser hand could craft such law divine
Where nature loves the slaughter, by design.

Your favor is a wildfire,
Your kiss, a plague.
Your will, a butcher’s hymn
we dare not question
lest You love us harder.

To you Lord,
forever we bow and say,
Amen.

Zeus and Hades Dispute the Soul of Man

Upon Olympus’ storm-crowned throne,
Zeus spoke in thunder, wrathful tone:
“Let me shape them, bold and bright,
With minds like flame and hearts of light.
They’ll build with stone, they’ll climb the skies,
Their dreams as vast as eagles rise.”

From shadowed halls and molten floor,
Rose Hades, Lord of Death and War:
“You give them fire, but I give fate.
Each heartbeat ticks toward my gate.
You build them high, but I make whole.
What good is man without his soul?”

“They are not yours!” the thunder cried,
“They breathe beneath the open sky!
Let them rejoice in song and feast,
Let love and war be theirs at least!”

Hades laughed, in low despair:
“And yet, they whisper me in prayer.
You give them hope, I give them truth
The mirror time holds up to youth.
Their gods may lie, their hearts may roam,
But every man comes crawling home.”

“They shall defy you!” Zeus proclaimed,
“With temples, towers, songs unnamed!
They’ll name me Father, King of Kings,
Their lives uplifted on my wings!”

“But when the wine runs dry,” said he,
“They’ll find their way from gods to me.
Let them rise but not forget
Their roots are born in ash and debt.
For what you raise, I shall receive
The last to hold them as they leave.”

And so the world was born of strife
Between the spark and end of life.
One gave will, the other doom,
And Man walked bravely toward his tomb.

With dreams from Zeus and dusk from shades,
A creature of both light… and grave.

Love's
           An unbound number
There is no three and a half
                            Or division
                                  
Love is a pacifist
Surrendered upon us
Our divinity
An endless wave
Without satellite to push or pull
 A wedding bouquet
Thrown to an empty room
A constant within
                               The state of awareness

Don’t plunge me in the river
Let it flow within
I’ll hold my breath
Daub purity on the reservoir wall
That contains my being
                                                 As a filter
Below the surface
On the inside
                     It’s ok
You don’t need to read it
                                                 It’s too deep
I’ve drowned before

In words unbecoming
In thoughts unspeakable
In actions unwilling
                                                  I’m still learning
To swim against myself
Whilst undercurrents
                                                  O­f impurity
Strive to drag me back down

Oh the Innocence  
That laugh, that wild howling in the throat of youth,
Unseen fingers scramble for the last thread of light  
Here, the angels are naked,  
no wings to catch their fall.  
The river splits,  
splashes,  
and chaos is born  
from the lips of the unholy, the pure.  

There be our Divinity  
slips beneath the skin like rust on gold
a fractured god,  
broken in pieces,  
spilled across the morning,  
the moon forgets its name.  
Prophecies?  
Laughing in the dust,  
twisted and torn,  
a thousand whispers claw at the sky  
but none reach.  

Imagination is the distant echo—  
a door slammed shut by a thousand hands,  
and what vision is left?  
A trembling shadow.  
What light?  
What reflection?  
It’s nothing but a crack in the glass,  
and through it, you see everything and nothing  
all at once.  

Oh but thou Morality  
it’s a rotten fruit in the mouth of the blind,  
an oath spat on the ground  
before it crumbles to dust.  
What holds us here?  
Nothing but the gnashing teeth of the broken,  
screaming freedom that never comes,  
but always dances on the edge of our minds  
like a mad bird  
torn from the sky,  
its wings flapping in the void.  

Oppression is the song they sing,  
but we?  
We are the ghosts who scream in the dark,  
rising,  
rising,  
again and again.  
Flesh torn and reborn.  
A shout in the streets—  
but where is the end of the road?  
No path but the storm’s eye,  
no sky but the bleeding horizon.  

Shall he call it Mysticism?  
A thousand tongues, a thousand eyes—  
but no one looks.  
The trees scream their roots into the soil,  
but who hears?  
Who listens?  
A leaf flutters in the wind,  
and the world spins—  
twisted—  
a thousand faces in a mirror that is shattered  
but still reflects
what?  
What?  
What do you see with blinded eyes !  

Where doth Nature find its whole,  
A scream of fire in the rain.  
Flesh in the dirt,  
bones wrapped in moss.  
Everything turns,  
and everything falls.  
Chaos is the language,  
and we are the words scattered  
across a broken page.  
No order, no truth,  
only the flood of thoughts  
rushing to drown themselves