i.

Indebted as I am, / you taught me the grammar / of glamour, I suppose, / tutored me with your own / tongue inside my mouth, spoke / without speaking notes which / still ring throughout my throat / faith-filled friend, how you knelt / confectional, candied / even when condemned, wrecked / gem whispering without / regret what rough and rent / experiences cut / and polished you, took in, / reminisced while singing, / those chances taken which / anyone else, stronger / strangers allegedly / more sensible, so called, / would diss then dismiss as / abysmal sins, no bold / opportunity missed, / how you lived wisdom and / sweetened as you took them / in broken men, me too, / manifold mysticism / softening hard hearts with / bones of sugar kisses / melt, fulfilled destiny / beating persecution / as wings do against vents / of tempestuous words, / transmuting every / zephyr of curse to an / encouraging chorus / of more uplifting wind / reconsidering its / course, killing with mercy / every critic sent / to diminish your worth / as you cured them whole, / restored to fullness of / health the worst unwell, how / tender you were, how blessed, / how charitable, how / powerful, you spectre / dressed in sweating flesh, your //

                    ii.

breath perfected my wet / pleasure’s heat until guilt / disintegrated and / ecstasy came to pass, / cleansed of any myth of / built-in filth every / fantasy in its fits / of envy enemy / society silenced / with lies designed to hide / them from me and always / relentlessly tried to / deny existence, to / let me inhabit the / deformity-fitting / essence of which, swift saint / alchemist, eagerest / teacher of completeness, / of an old soul’s total / transformation, how we / accomplished great changes, / initiated me / into the mysteries / of my fated greatness / when I gave up faking / apprenticed to your deep / secrets, razing my past / together we had in / our hands enough ashes / to phœnix together / a halo of crystal, / a rotating globe of / celestial visions / into which all spirit / mingled its infinite / influence with my fame’s / intentions, offering / as compensation our / extemporaneous / compliments, confessions / of lost innocence at / once liberating and / celebrating a feigned / victim, resurrection / manifesting first as / mild symptoms then as more / vivid premonitions //

                    iii.

that every crippling / inhibition you stripped / from me would never kill / with stillness or surface / again, no sir, not if / I believed with fullness / of conviction in the / Self you foresaw from the / start me loving before / I could comprehend its / acceptance so far off, / your sacrifices then / and mine since are knowledge / which washes from burdened / consciences undeserved / bloodguiltiness, how I / miss learning from you how / best to serve my will’s true / purpose, full of such grace, / enough to contemplate / the worthiness of the / lowliest prayer, so glad / you answered when I dared / call on you to question / my behaviour then, faced / as I had been with so / much grave indecision / even blind men tracing / the circle had each one / himself a better sense / of direction, seeing / a way through this thickest / wilderness of my own / making, feasting now on / that wicked beast of my / own vanquishing, how one’s / ravenous memory / needs from time to time to / meet its own vanishing, / so hungry for presence / its teeth wound the present, / no matter how full of / bullshit, no wonder it’s / your face which appears when / I return to the same / mirror, healed again / of every ordeal.