Once we conjure powers into our human vessel that were never meant to fill it, then the cup must carry the burden.
          —Acher¹

                    i.

Attacked by the power of my own
conjuring, toward hurt to thwart yours
my mantra’s current reverbs with words
its worsening repetition curbs,

                    ii.

transforms your cathedral of ego
as it rises from virgin forests
with breaths of mist, those extravagant
sorrows whispers out so that pain might

                    iii.

dissolve into pores thirsting for dirt,
bothersome gossip some performance
of some god’s imperfect storm might halt,
if not stop, from being swallowed and

                    iv.

applauded by thieving witnesses
unworthy of its gift, sonorous
theft, this cup filling up with pieces
constellating this mess of stardust

                    v.

lest chaos beget an audience
and sip, with lips its liquor singes,
guiltless glimpses of eternities
glittering until, instead of burst,

                    vi.

enlightenments burn and fizzle, sparks
preferring to obscure entropy’s
miseries being discovered by
editors of time’s lines your lies ride

                    vii.

beneath weakened flesh, under wet skin
sweat drenches and needles ply their strength
of temptation against, so that might
arrive some estimate of life left

                    viii.

when, miserable, you realize
death’s initial pinch was my kiss pressed,
with more remorse than yours was, onto
his warrant we sealed for each other

                    ix.

last summer when we even bothered
to take new lovers, all the while our
hearts conscious of their hours they stopped them,
those replacements this bitterness with

                    x.

blinking whips of lashes and shaken
heads tortured in sight of rolling eyes,
disposed of, did away with, after
nights beaten off hard by rising suns

                    xi.

envious and deprived, by darkness
taken in, in better light we might
have survived but, under this lens, our
stars’ intensity magnified faults

                    xii.

neither of us in ritual trenched
could deny demanded sacrifice,
and thus afflicted, in difficult
positions worst aspects depicted,

                    xiii.

my left hand ventured first to pick up
the knife by its black handle and drive
within your lamen of sacred signs
the division dividing two lives.

__________
¹Frater Acher, “Chapter Two: Cyprian of Two Worlds: A Priest of Good or Evil? The Grimoire of Cyprian: A Coptic Erotic Love Spell: Conclusion” of Cyprian of Antioch: A Mage of Many Faces, published at London by Quareia Publishing UK in 2017; page 120.