i. Sun in Libra

Stars like hollow-bodied whores
empty violins playing men

like fallen angels, light filling
their ears as they sing of sin

it goes without saying
that my heart

is like water
in your hands

drowning as I am
in affection for you
and my own reflection

                    ii. Mercury in Scorpio

‘I need a witness to my alibi’
is just another line, that
and, ‘What’s your sign?’

a word that dies
before it leaves the pen

an uprising
at the burial

liberated by
our pseudonyms

its gold a myth
that lures to their death

conquistadors
and my lips

where we meet
this unclean machinery

of a lubricious mind
automatons of lovers seek

armies of lawyers
like toy soldiers

armed with paper weapons
climbing ladders they deny

exist just to keep
me from writing it

that what I trust
is too seditious to let slip

my heart’s secret
that I do give a shit

and want nothing more
than to live

with your gift of something
other than strife

                    iii. Venus in Scorpio

finding in love’s infinite
tomorrows, buried among

its archaic layers
of catacombed trysts

we’d had and only now
wish we didn’t, regrets

we resist acknowledging
with all the conviction

of pagan symbols
painted over

by intolerant tyrants
with crucifix precision

last night’s archived crimes
unsealed by your kiss

as confessions blush
with torrid ordeal

when I admit my need
for an accomplice

that stripping this guilt
to naked ribs will

resurrect from debt’s
unrelenting grip

what flesh imprisons
imperfections

of soul requiring
no revision

the price of changing
one’s mind

a cost robbing us
of our prime when a rake’s
offer we conspire to buy

                    iv. Pluto in Scorpio

if the stars lost their light
if I were mortal and had a life

babe, I’d never let go
of tonight and hold you

closer than a fading
constellation, making

flames of this spark’s
light(n)ing we bottled enough

to give blind ambition sight
of what fight we have left

and I’d let down my garden
watering instead

this stone’s tired faces
tracing well-worn paths

without warning
foregoing legend

to welcome revision
encouraging the scorching

of a tale’s blazing
comets commenting

on and trailing my lie’s
ending, sighing fire

sulphur, vitriol, and
some substance

some universal solvent
disproving all of my

conundrums, a hidden
little minute wherein

the devil can’t touch us
and our souls near surface
if only as tears we purchase.