Innocence is not wise, and wisdom cannot be innocent, and if we are going to do any good in the world, we have to leave childhood behind.
          —Pullman¹

Twelve syllables fill a mouth’s echoing chamber.
This side of the tomb, bullets make their point loudest.
More dangerous than anything else tongues favour,

anything left to say after taking off your
armour rings hollow in one’s hour of nakedness.
Twelve syllables fill a mouth’s echoing chamber,

powerless against silence, instinct’s a killer.
Desire deflowers innocence with its kisses
more dangerous than anything else tongues favour.

In the stillness of your autumnal heart’s winter,
eager whispers breathe beatings, dampen spirits with
twelve syllables. Fill a mouth’s echoing chamber

with secrets and inexperience will either
leak them or increase how evil what seems sweetest’s
more dangerous than anything else tongues favour.

Shadows bleed into the skull’s shallow bowl fever
nothing heals better than a soul’s weakness for flesh.
Twelve syllables fill a mouth’s echoing chamber,
more dangerous than anything else tongues favour.

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¹Philip Pullman, “Introduction: Paradise Lost and its influence”, in John Milton’s Paradise Lost: Introduced by Philip Pullman, published at New York by Oxford University Press in 2005; page 10.