i. Fastus
                                                  [Latin, “Arrogance”]

You blaspheme as you bless me, feasting
                    on my meatamorphoseas—
eating of what my hand’s creating,
                    taking from bathymetry
with Baphomet(r)ic swiftness my deaths—
                    trawling my transformations
and my works their illumination—
                    bleeding from gasping lines depth,
seeking to find in my mind’s darkest
                    abyss, sight of what secrets
transmute suffering to wealth—offshore
                    and offhand accounts your claws
open, veins of golden filth you drain
                    with Báthory’s diligence—
so, when you paint with pain you never
                    have had to live, does it give
your existence resilience its
                    crippling insignificance
tempers with amateur artifice?

                                        ii. Tædium
                                                  [Latin, “Disgust”]

                    Tampering with arsenals
so impossible to control, souls
                    like yours will tremble more than
others’ would when my words force the world
                    with wonder to behold, hordes
told the truth, that this old mouth it was
                    that formed, and with tongue of flame
forged, silver-threaded songs poisonous
                    kisses counterfeited from
my fastidious and furious
                    lips, my gift lifted by your
envious grip’s inarticulate
                    theft, covetous fingerprints
my fist, laid fast in benediction,
                    will erase from your face, all
recognition taken back, my hits
                    restoring to their rightful
thrones in my pantheon, those poems
                    my misery inked, mortar
and pestle pressing tears into ground
                    bones, wetting (l)ashes of sons
and daughters murdered by harder stones
                    than this heart your f(r)ictions throw
to break, my c(o)urse not that you should share
                    so noble a fate, but live—
shamed by your name’s obliteration
                    from eternal placement in
my constellation, forgotten by
                    legend and literature
for having had so inordinate
                    and unfortunate your sad
fixation on their master, heroes
                    made from heroic actions,
not from fatal attractions and failed
                    couplings, your failing that your
panther-sleek spite, with its kohl-eyed creep,
                    sycophantasmagoric
cloak, and daggered-diamond lies stole
                    only words, as though a whole
book were too beastly a burden, these
                    no more than my wrath’s warning…