Remember to conceal better in the beginning the matters you will shed light on here[.]
          —Sade¹

                    i.

Scavenger talons pluck the plumage of this
angel’s ruin. Picking through it, chewing this
messenger’s weathered sinews imbues one with
visions of vestigial images latent

                    ii.

talent grows into gargantuan, gloating
illuminations those who prey mistake for
glory’s origins, crowning with feathers nude
kings oblivious to wisdoms ancient—crude

                    iii.

jewels making what in greater haste they will
take away. Mistaking wings for limp playthings,
decay’s cavernous mouthfuls of moths winging
it into flame—anticipating pains of

                    iv.

greatness playing again different angles
of the same coronation—shadow in and
blossom, shrouds unashamed of laying on his
head this fading laurel’s weighty burden

                    v.

rewarding no one with its greying pageant
withering to rags for newsmakers to trade
layers of pages lifting from their mâché
all cachet, all patina of this feigned crown’s

                    vi.

fabrication of better days. Wearing down
to its core this cage of bones he wore when throned,
unaware that to go to war with your own
is to let go to waste the very thing which

                    vii.

separates them from him, that breath within men
call their soul—their will’s wind which, when blowing strong,
presses on his chest hard enough to blow him
down—this man of straw manufactured against

                    viii.

all odds to deafen to uncompromising
silence all arguments favouring instead
someone else’s god other than him, knowing
love terrifies those who cannot love themselves.

__________
¹The Marquis de Sade, “Tenth Day” in “Part One” of The 120 Days of Sodom or The School of Libertinage: Translated and with an Introduction by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn, published at London by Penguin Books in 2016; page 159.