+ in nomine Patris

gasoline drips
from his nostril
like kids from a dick,
his blood is in my blood,
our roots noose-thick

ropes of promises
coming down, uncut
and undeliverable,

end-of-days miserable,
every day’s EODs
unusable, but he’s
racking up what
we should be

including in our
definition of
offering, offspring

monetized once baptized,
thrown on fire,
tap water and lies
tying up what skies
piss down, this crowd

of versions bettering
me, telling with dry eyes
they have no interest

          + et Filii

in me, my survival
the revival of sacrifice
reviled, that is, until
the man I called my father
arrived, a pile of ashes

reconciled with dust,
earth shouldering
albatross shit and

burdens, beasts often
tasked with herding
travelers make asses
of us, mules used
to obedience defy us

as they drive us into
a burial mound,
pushing up tits of ground

like a crowd’s rising bravado,
their bravos an applause of rain
staining a pasture’s panties,
spring’s collection of leaves blows
as clouds sound their pain

and in rain I greet him,
wearing thin my socks,
pulling up those threadbare

          + et Scepticismi

burial shrouds my feet shed,
leaving naked his bruised
promises of this journey
coming to its end,
of one day never again

having to keep
my father’s secret,
seeping like ink

off the blankness of my face,
into a tomb keeping
warm the bullet holes
thousand-yard stares
make of my gaze,

talent and passion
a total waste if even
his son, a poet often

chasing fame, someone
immortal, cannot even
inspire such a killing
to be tamed onto page,
to inspire generations

of strangers to taste
of danger in verse
I lay here with his name.