Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
          —Lev 19:31¹

                    *

By ‘Christ’ I often meant not the historical figure of Jesus, but a cosmic principle of unconditional love which actively seeks to help all of us.
          —Bloom²

                    I • Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum י

A lover witnessed by all the others
     whose names I refuse to utter,

     to write of it would be total
betrayal, yes, annihilate until

its kohl’d ashes whistle with hell’s howl this
     quiet love’s riotous end, hot

     innocence of one’s most wanted,
wanton, hidden affection lambasted,

headed nowhere fast, abrupt gestures of
     fist and thrust spelling out hard its

     dark magic so that its power
passes from our fingertips to strangers’

ears, blasted aloud by crass lips with wide-
     smiling, hissing broadcasts of such

     envious mouths black tongues tincture

                    N • Igni Natura Renovata Integra נ

ill then, no longer powerful at all,

what we feel falls limp, deadened by its damned
     development desire quickened,

     silenced since a magician’s just
a pathetic, miserable, little

heretic who trusts in Christ, sins, repents,
     ascends, and slips yet again, struts

     unapologetic, repeats
the epic process across a twisting,

sinewy variety of primal
     obscenities marked by blades of

     necessary transgressions traced
in primitive circles on the ground, at

war within, protecting the world from what
     wants to happen, evocation

                    R • Intra Nobis Regnum Iesus ר

     of spirited, ancestral, pent-
up aggression against creation hate

manifesting art’s heated spark in this
     crucible heart of a Gnostic

     disciple of the world-shaping
constellation of which his own star is

but one part, force at once confident and
     concerned knowing that without him,

     it all dissolves, sick in his love,
vanity before the unadorned Lord

garmented in the skin of every
     named thing shames those sacred words to

     scars, vampirizes another’s
grace for its own sake, mistakes weakness for

beaten flesh feasted on by demons as

                    I • Isis Naturæ Regina Ineffabilis י

     blessed and sated, brave sorcerous

     worker of things miraculous
and scandalous, great soldier of engorged

stories wounding modesty telling you
     everything I could never

     say before, famed, I am my own
amoral example, vain fabulist

Caining Abel, confessing things I could
     never save you from, baby, these

     insidious enemies of
ours filling up the emptiness of my

wintry inner-Self, I am the battle-
     field your breath crawls across, haunted,

     we could be sinners in sequence,
delinquent and devious, one secret.

__________
¹“The Third Book of Moses, Called Leviticus”, [Chapter] 19[, Verse] 31, in “The Old Testament” of Holy Bible: King James Version, published at Grand Rapids, Michigan by Zondervan in 2007; page 81.
²William Bloom, “17 April[, 1972]”, in “The First Two Months” of The Sacred Magician: A Ceremonial Diary, published at Glastonbury, Somerset by Gothic Image Publications in 1992; page 62.