i. In nomine sanguis, ✠

Been burnin’ through that Borden money
the way we recently acquitted
always do, burning bridges to light
my way, finding love like a leper
does ointment in an unbroken jar,
breaking jaws tasting both of holy
water & hellfire, disordered desire
a sunset song whose echo is the
colour of dawn lionizing loss
in its coming on, rubbing off hard,
neon country of limelit lust down-

                    ii. et parricidii, ✠

trodden hearts flickering beneath skin
above which sweat pulses across then
quickens until it fails and all stalls,
crawls as a tree sp(l)itting fruit into
fire does, rots to rust roots in garden
beds it strikes, unguarded ground, as torn
lightning falls, thundering right where you
are, that’s where I’ve been, yes, caring when
nobody else was, no, yet I’ve had
everyone else, though few fools have
ever had me, so close now we could

                    iii. et arboris excidimus. Amen. ✠

go to Confession then Mass, on our
knees in front of some priests, too free to
even be worried if poetry
makes any sense to those envious
of our sins, oblivious, incensed
by the stench of our bullshit’s Christ-stanced
hubris, contrapposto in places
too much confidence sacrileges,
relentless as this pen is, reddens
these fingertips pressed to lips as if
my tongue’s wealth could be kept or secret.