i. Axis

                                                  It’s not that we believed in god
but that we didn’t believe in our Selves
                                             swaggering kingship offering
     on corrugated altars angel meat
                                        boxed in by what we thought was love
          feats of strength not enough to clean from knives
                                   our ritual’s blood, its fight still
               warm from moving too smoothly through our hearts
                              from foregoing warning until
                    what truth we refused to swallow consumed
                         us both, in those moments heat proved
                         too much and useless all at once, when you
                    reached into me with sharpest glance
                              shattering blade and chalice to mythic
               obscurity none but this dead
                                   planet’s few remaining legends could wrap
          their heads around or handle, thin
                                        bandages easily torn by wounds wind’s
     whispering lips blow into, minds
                                             blown by the time we realized the show’s

                         ii. Antipode

                                             over, an atlas of danger
     marking where we buried our souls, showing
                                        in full-colour how filling those
          holes made of our journey a lonelier
                                   road, our dolorous cries louder
               when pilgrims returning from its depth let
                              us know we passed it, that under
                    the moon’s deceptive light doubt grows faster
                         shadows emerge as witness where
                         there was no disaster, messages from
                    the bottoms of rocks no one carved
                              for in our fading art flagrant anger
               harangues genius with silent
                                   fists of lies and solitude so cruel
          a mistress, so fugitive-quick
                                        a Muse, such as you conspires to deceive
     us with, hiding from explorers
                                             what their quest authors, through worse depths than your
absence we have crawled and caverned
                                                  lit only by what fire we imagined.