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.