For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
          —Jn 5:4¹

                    i.

Accosted by a god whose only
image is the human form itself,
without apology he said to
me, ‘It will not pass between us as
you believe.’ To shape desire into
satisfaction, fantasy greets her
vain suitors in a transparent robe
inside of which is inscribed those same
lines, those same slain sighs of relief that
someone else is responsible for

                    ii.

authoring these lies. Bereaved at the
unheard voice whose breath burns noiselessly
across the chest, the tongue of flame which
plunged so deeply as its heat leapt so
quickly and fled the flesh whose red thirst
it fed, yet left fast unquenched, after
caressing life’s edge. What no phœnix
can ever resist is the bed of
its own cooling ashes being so
foolhardy in fevered pursuit of

                    iii.

manifesting his wishes he makes
for himself, this perpetual pall
an alchemical reaction a
heart has to its passion’s destruction.
Transgression transmuting suffering
into something from nothing, breaking
down is creation in reverse, the
flood’s true purpose, regenerating
after dissolving. Coagulating
again to form another chance

                    iv.

at being a thing almost human,
considering each beating a sweet
mixing of discipline with emotion,
just a little more the next time
than before, every previous
perversion a shadow returning
to the light every morning. What
else is left, then, when only ashes
remain? To view by fire the ruins
of another’s lovers, phœnix-beaked

                    v.

kisses trouble the waters, kick up
the muck with such deceptive talk, pick
apart every last shred of the
heroic until it wilts and groans
picaresque, peck perilous at the
heart, crackling loudest and lewdest in
the sacred flames of opened veins some
stranger’s mouth stained with the blood of dead
relatives. From the outset of this
pilgrimage a willing sacrificial

                    vi.

victim destined to be forgotten,
resisting the advances of
no one but not without reason. To
be embraced even for the passing
of a fruit through the bitterness of
autumn falling on its knees in weakest
obeisance to winter’s eager
season, chasing only the dream of
seeing and being seen by the auburn
eyes of dusky men whose lustiest,

                    vii.

illustrious adventures are
open secrets of which even their
women are ignorant, veiled in willful
blindness. Every passion awaits
without remorse or pity its
necessary repentance, fatigued
warriors lovelorn and taciturn
from acquiescing without concern
to pressing demands nobody has
ever risked asking. Questionable

                    viii.

actions dressed in compliments the colour
of olives sweating drab in desert
conditions under crescented
mouthfuls of moonlit petitions, silent
prayers quivering under the molasses-
tarred splinters of lightning-blackened
moustaches preventing their smooth
passage to heaven, grimaces riding
the faces of bedouin mages
the uncleanliness of my guile’s

                    ix.

guiltless, filthiest imagination
has summoned. I have been with them,
cupbearer to ascetic soldiers
and circumspect heretics, the real
spiritual warriors, pricks whose
anathemic, antithetical,
abiblical wisdom peppers with
thorny whispers the scorched pages of
my own forlorn narrative since I
have borne and known so intimately

                    x.

my back, ever since going whole-hog
this lamentable, reprehensible
journey, has broken like a cracked
eggshell under the burden of its
yoke, yet left intact, all jokes aside,
spine enough to counteract and stand
up against those detractors of theirs
and mine whose condemnation of our
wants contradicts the knowledge their
actions give to us which they never will

                    xi.

have of themselves. Yes, from this all fear
stems, ignorance of the law of one’s
true will whose only edict is to
do whatever you feel. Too phœnix-
like to accept what we deal, these holy
fools whose flagrant disregard for
the truths we reveal burns them up with
more zeal than that which consumes us
whenever we kneel to receive the load
we will consume if he can host,

                    xii.

revering before we ghost him hard his
spontaneous warmth, swallowing whole
every word whose origin and
meaning we prefer remain so
mysterious. Worshipping in silence
with confidence the Demiurge within
us all, flamers throwing fire on
our haters the way Rome did its scourge
on Montségur. One’s manhood is a
tower and icons are the tarot

                    xiii.

of the church, thus this is the way it
goes: troubadour guilty of nothing
more than following the dictate of
my own conscience, I am stoned by those
martyrs whose haloes seem no more than
neon open signs adorning the
doors of bars on weekends, morality
more often than not situational
as their sexuality, knights
whose grail fails them since it is false.

__________
¹“The Gospel According to S. John”, [Chapter] 5[, Verse] 4, in “The New Testament” of Holy Bible: King James Version, published at Grand Rapids, Michigan by Zondervan in 2002; page 661.