i proffer this ceremony as tribute to my dust.

i rapture myself
bleed my prayful tribute
that my painted devils may enter in

o how i miss their rutting tongues
caressing soft slaughter
their baleful paean

how can i make this faded bitter thing rejoice?

i profane myself.
one might laugh
for how brightly
i am lost

princesses do not have voices like mine.

fragile moans haunt after unattainable highs
straining, piteous and woeful.

soulful.
fragile.
covetous.

am i home, or simply here?

i lay frozen.
i am brutal unkind.
i have a yearning fatigue.

am i alive enough to climb inside this,
my waning wilderness?

i do not feel the fervor.
i am not possessed.
i am bled dry.

and the lament undid me.

this soft tomorrow hour
roars sudden thunder
pours me out

surrender bleat the sages
but do they know
we must go on
living

if i toil apart from myself do i live at all?
it hurts more than just a little
to yield me to you

the only remedy loiters our orchestra.
how else would i love you as much
as you would love
if i let you?

thrashing soulweep fugues punish
your becoming plead
sings you deep

myriad loves that outshine
can’t go on living
will you learn?

i’m sorry. i don’t want to waste this.
can we begin again?

(but if i’m being honest
really honest i fear
only for me.

your army is still.
can you make me well?)

have you ever looked over past the lonesome dreams
where the world comes to an end?
the beautiful life is over there
let’s get some horses,
let’s ride!

o my bewildered beloved,
you inherit me.

your thrashing craves the agony of my closeness.
the ghost of love-sorry wanting
haunts your yearning
tender wails.

i punish your sweet aching endless.

my noblest work is to bestow the tarnished spoons
of your soul starved birthright.

that we would already reminisce
such jagged begotten nostalgias,
who are we fated to be?

little bird, how can you suffer such unceasing immortal stings
and yet gush such immense unbounded brightness?

i am naked in your singing eyes,
the vast unthought half-imaginary mirror of your unbending love.

i’ve lain with the cursed to bless our way home.
i would see you back to yourself.

your divinity frolic provokes my flesh
godless minstrels slow dance blue confessions
demolish our disavowed theatre

i am stone in your singing eyes
looking down on my plucked soul
anchored by liar’s sweat

you want my embalmed fury sound
whose awful lurking unbeing
i treasure holy

me under your too heavy caress
waiting without hope or burden
for the purloined agony to thicken

the surrendered nape’s soft fur our unimagining
my only unbelonging belongs
to your teasing self-love

i want you to find what you are not
to brighten you
cease your confidence.

after all these years
don’t you think it’s time we met?

i find my own way home

your myth of me is writ heavenlarge
but not today

today today today
my scartissue fightpsalm
profanes your hallowed rune

i retch your unsung realms
and transmogrify my holy I am.

only i may herald all of me
wholly bespoke.

the table is set
i have left a place for you
the landscape of your longing

we find no sustenance here
thirteen eversoulstarved

suckcheeked rubberlimbed
lice eat more than we do
itching scratching
disciples

i have fed your heirs

plastic slathered buggy pancakes
tall glasses sugar water reconstituted sour milk
thick slices sad slimy orange poverty cheese
crusty mildewed manna
cramp our bellies
and void us

yes if my father comes surely he will be hungry--

the wretched foul unwashed beast beckons gaily

we trembling tornasunder vagabond scions
peel back your tarnished grace
devour your rotten fruits

your beatific visage twists fiendishly,
your mirthless horse guffaw
taunts

and you rapturously drink the **** of the man who ravaged your descendants

we unworthy find no succor
but only violent terror

--imagine a world without the unwashed?

ancient soul--

you hold you down
colossal waters choke you

here, you can’t swallow you
when you are you.

lifetimes ravished spent
stolen by promised benediction
the altar of the perfected
persistent sacrament,
dust.

here, even a morsel crumbles you.

you mistook ashes for completion
and fleeting aches made permanent
determine your shape

afflictions you endure become affections you inflict.
ancient soul, you haunt you.

primordial pursuit beckons you where it all began
here, a wink forges you.

soot covered, hardened, incomplete,
you invoke your divine personhood.

armor yourself with prophecy
the perverted supplication becomes invocation.

you loose you upon this ossified beast
and take heaven whole.

wild lonely heretics
we mighty few charge heedless
past the ruin of this feckless despot
and into the unbounded

we do not mourn
slackjawed pleading apostles
festooned in dismal agape piety
no!  

unbidden, we scorned
leap reckless & ******
hurl angels body & soul
o’er yawning trenches

(dissolute drunken muttering wretches outstretched prurient caresses  
upturned voracious maws)

brazen i name you
lay upon you  
this fierce hasty  
gasping injunction

fervent orison spew
lest hapless festive kings frivol away  
our stolen fertile prayers
and

--our sisterly love spent,  our maiden voyage waste--

decree the shapeless unmolested
in their firmament stained spire
ruinous royalty.  

o, young one, tremble not
but bury the smoldering detritus
of the fallen jackals
and rise

we accompany one another  
bawdily where it all began.