But through my hands slip red
and pungent bristles,
and my fingers a sieve.
All is lost
All is lost
Cry raven and rook,
the snakes hide in their holes
and we weep onto the thirsty earth.
All angels fled
and serpents for our love.
A crack across the sky
a scar upon our brow
an ocean dry
and a cloven lip
and my hands a sieve.

White tongue of shame,
sit dripping on my cheek
and tell me your song of woe.
The years’ lost flow,
dark and sad,
an unbroken stream
from my ears to yours.
And wave, and wave
bent unchecked,
washing your sins and mine
into the neverwas
and the hasn’tbeen.
A leaf, a whisp,
A tear, a sign,
A sob, a moan,
A sin, a lie.

Arms opened and roots my legs,
my mind a circle,
a rook scanning high
and my heart the tide.

Black robed and bedewed
by emerald seas of grass
and the shade of high trees.

Breath held for thirty days
and legion lovers between,
but no difference here,
and no matter now.

The tittering witness
hurls scorn from above;
contempt ignored
upon our closeness.

And the seeing are blind
and do not hear.
But I and you see all,
and hear echoes of the endless.

Eternity our lips
and a universe my fingertips
under the eyes of dead gods
and of the sun.

Sunflower, balmy ray of golden joy
in summer rain. You turn your speckled face
and smile, your lips provocative and coy.
You gaze at me, beginning to erase
my inhibition and to calm my fears.
Your eyes in mine, our bodies close and warm,
your hand upon my cheek to wipe the tears
that all the loss of others and a swarm
of troubles caused to flow. But that is gone,
no more will troubles bend my weary spine.
Your words and lips both touch my soul; upon
my cheek your hand; your eyes in mine.
With all of this, and more, you have undone
my heart, my soul, sunflower in the sun.

searing in the bag of flesh
hung low
with a great meaning
a desire for ending
striven for the light
reached hands high
to touch the face of goddesses
and anchored in sludge

to sleep and rise
or sleep still
and to go on?
is it enough this time?
is a world past the mirror?
and a sky in your eyes?

She strode as man,
broken as the stars
and as the emerald eyes.
Athwart all fears,
and astride my weaknesses.
Straddled and surprised.
Souls poured into domination
and the mist of sea and sky
and the fury of powerful hips.
Serpent take me.
Inscribe the sign of a circle
and bear away wounds of the dark.
It will ever echo
and be raw in sight of eye.

Dripping plum flesh
cloven for a finger,
and the skill of a hand.
Shaft palmed
Cavern fisted
and a stroke down
and the spear of a laugh
and no word can tell.

Then rough flipped
a doll, a toy,
a long rod pleading
and a witch upon me.
The cycle of a quickened moon,
the burst of the prey,
and I piss my soul
for the longing of men.

Monstrous shades in inky night
mingle with idea raw and bleeding
and suck the marrow from my bones.
Fearless I sit, and doze.
For the demon is kin and bedmate.

A succubus and a cripple sit epaulet
gainsaying lies in coarse whispers
and the devil brushes softly my face,
gruesome and terrible
and glassy gaze unmoved.

For more than demon red, jaws round my throat
more than dark visage that follows my steps
more than fiery death and rent flesh
and useless age and the end of stars
more than the lies of neant and all dead gods
it is her I fear.

So come monstrous shades in inky night

Swallow swallow fly on honey sky.
Bring me a cerulean orb
and a sphere of beryl.
Azure witches
and sapphire sisters.
Swallow swallow brush with your tail
my darkened face
and eyes of red fire.
Four times spent
and the neverending death.
Swallow swallow take wing from your cage.
From false god
And supposed god.
From a city of mothers
and the downriver people.
Swallow swallow turn your face to the moon
To the lonely one,
the elf bosom.
Fly fly through the night
and over the smiling dawn.

Cry for child and cry for refugee.
A dream of six hundred miles
and of a thousand years.
If I sit friendless in the grey morning
and bleed and speak to machines
will you think a long thought?
If I tread on hills motionless
and censor all meaning
will you eat my hands and spray incense?
Withered and searing
the debris of twenty times
and every act a sin.

Her rage black and inevitable
and her censure a lost mystery.
Come child, come refugee
come drink at my bosom
be it dry, be it poison
and I will turn you to ash
and blow you to the winds.
It is not I who can save you.
Break on your fate
crushed on a hidden road.
The fount of all progeny
and the shock of generations
gripped in agony
like hazy sleeplessness
and death alone.