76 × 80 in

                                        Aching folds of complacency
embolden southern constellations to claim
                    their sovereignty, an unthroned
sun rising sullen, his ascending oven
                    sending silken snow running, plush
crescendos of pillows softening under
                    mourning’s lifting of the perfumed
evening’s remaining veils, weighty secrets and
                    breathy repeals flushing from flesh-
drunk hearts all trace of love’s opiates, soft drugs
                    of blushing kisses stiffening
next-day to marble-hardened mugs, debasement’s
                    scarred, decaffeinated faces
realizing those visions that, in last night’s
                    past lives, enslaved them, made of chased
women fading rose-buds and of hastier
                    wingmen Icarean studs, sons
incapable of rising above this quaint
                    situation, that morning’s an

embittered amanuensis whose handful
                    of fastidious light writes no
wrong, that those in our arms are not true doves nor
                    angels laid, but sobriety’s
unsightly muses paid for with shame, Sunday-
                    mornings-after more than mere youth’s
severely trivial matters when warring
                    spring’s bottle-nosed Dauphin, raising
armies of spirits, pokes his hose in and he
                    pisses to bloom this seminal
revelation: that what those velvet bedroom-
                    eyes welcomed then, seldom becomes
something worth remembering, so chrome-barreled
                    Eros, swaggering in with his
weapon’s semi-automated process of
                    selection, comes naturally
to the enticing conclusion that two brutes
                    so equally confused as you
and I should remain entombed in this embrace

          1.9 × 2.0 m

                                        in which we both are still entwined,
inclined like all quasi-divine kinds to prove
                    to himself that shooting down blind
hubris makes the unkind world more just, he busts
                    us and caps our lust’s conquest with
a quota his silver bullets kill, no more
                    wandering for us burdensome
beasts once whoredom’s field, where we grazed and we played,
                    fades faintest grey, fails to pay its
electricity, and that island nation
                    of degenerate debtors finds
its devout adherents prisoners in its
                    own (s)hallow(ed) temple, things profane
painted sacred when thrown by saints to the grave,
                    no codices, codeine, or our
own codependency capable, even
                    if culpable, to trace its pain
in the telling of how we fell, not only
                    from having flown too high the night

before, but into each other’s arms—a fate
                    worse than hell or the sun’s own, an
unending war having forever to burn
                    in a seasonal cycle just
as eternal but twice as warm, evil with
                    no redemption or recourse, your
charms dissolved whenever I roll over and
                    curse, finding in your face our shared
sentence making so much more hideous its
                    remembrance, its unrelenting
reflection a blaring repetition of
                    repetitions, words slurring and
slandering the soul my uncontrollable
                    urge to get laid sold to gain this
torment mor(t)al men call the marriage-bed, this
                    burial ground where destiny
and decency like wounded lambs go to lie
                    down, where your coffin mouth never
closes and I always end up nailed somehow.