i.

     Not yours, to you I owe no birth,
upon a blossoming throne adorned with a breath
     of pearls garlanding a mouth whose
lips are dusted with ashen ruby, pulverized
     quartz, azure of dissolved lapis,
and other crushed stones which blossom below the earth
     your trespassing footsteps trample
above, here in a cavernous throat’s jewelled room
     of my heart’s own netherworld I
am Sheol’s prince regent ruling over ev’ry
     other victim of your kiss’s

                    ii.

curse, governing in Lucifer’s absence with my
     hiss’s acid words, my cloven
hooves hirsute and soulless ultra-Fascist forks of
     jet thunderbolts, feathered talons
of ravenous lightning writing exile on your
     name my ink blackens, booting out
of Hell the far darker shadow your feigned concern
     casts with a stain’s imprecision
onto its already obsidian floor, soot
     shooing what masked undoing I
have shunned before, not yours, this is my sepulchre,

                    iii.

     you bandit of my scars’ worst hurt’s
abandoned shore, bend your knees and kneel before them,
     bless this isle where serpents course
the scorched columns of what were once my bones, trace the
     aching baseboards of this arid
storehouse where worms forage like farmers for death’s just
     reward, bornless before the god-
form for whom this ritual reverencing non-
     existence is performed, the grim
interstitial hollow of this sacrificial
     grove is my ancestral home, the

                    iv.

moonlit crescent of my sickle dripping with the
     necromantic scent of secret
ceremonials, the tumescent tallow of
     its sacred candles blanding the
adornment of this temple’s furniture with the
     alabaster sweat of waxen
idols whose fading fingers burn to plaster-grey
     puddles the exasperated
prayers they hold, shaken from folds of palms fall faiths and
     empires whose dates only I know,
where I am hallowed thorns of sulphur throw out their

                    v.

     horns and splinter the nostrils of
blind minstrels whose lyres my lair’s fevered fire strings with
     silver chords, gossamer gospels
whose ribald songs with quavering lines my squalor’s
     filthiest mind inspires, its calls
awakening the untold, quivering to incline
     their hemlocked ears those antic seers
whose antique oracles I deliver without
     fear or ever hesitating
to withhold my contempt for your withered vintage
     whose musk my tongue esteems no more,

                    vi.

be gone, spectre, into the oblivious hours
     my clepsydra’s reticent drip
abhors, yours is a bled heritage whose broken
     promises extinguished heads of
the unvanquished hydra devour, disavowing
     what its howl dishonours and no
longer pours into the alms bowls of mendicant
     chroniclers now hesitant to
record another’s hunger, your face’s utter
     erasure from my history’s
pages is the audacious wine for which I thirst.