i.

Shattered bestial gatherer, alabaster
master of my own
demise, uncompromising con​nois​seur of
attrition, televisionary magician conjuring
cinematic attention, smoothing over
stoned hearts exerting no
more than a sigh,
à la bastard influencing

futures by being more
cultured than those whose
impatience waiting for glimpses
of what seems love
in those whispered instances
of buying lies from
lays my bombast tries,
promises tarnished by that

brass tactlessness in my
voice few survive, scratches
in wax uttered within
a cough written on
black pages chronicling candle-lit
affection transitioned by unrepentant
infatuation running rampant to
chronic affliction purpling breaking

days, dirtying dawns making
of our plague-spittled kisses
greyed ashes enough to
paint on minds what
vivid, hidden pain tastes
like when shaken inside,
plain-sight payment taken blind-sided
and for granted by

offence taking its craven
misinterpretation as pavement over
which madness and passion
craving escape when really
in need of reason
scrapes from the eyes
of idols ritual kohl,
drawn-on by fits of

                    ii.

made-up savagery raked by
the nagging of flagrant
regrets from once-unashamed trysts
when untamed desire became
its own animal, bitten
from then on, ravaged
ever since, devoured by
hunger flesh wet with

tongues of fire licking
like water the borders
of bodies against which
its copper ocean climbed
higher, another anger swallowed
by my liars, you
men whose feuds with
choice I prefer to

choose rather than commit
to them who cannot
when too many seems
better, one too dangerous
if possibility is not
just playing us and
what it offers really
is endless, this pleasure,

however, never lasts, and
thus I speak, preaching
heresies my body’s wrathfulness
waged against time’s racing
rages and enacts, entrapments
attracting your honey my
mouth laps, asking in
no language, ‘Look at

my lips the way
you would look at
a grave? It is
ours you fill with
filth my throat mines!
These teeth pick-axes primed
to bite from wet
walls what bickering wrongs

                    iii.

flickering vestiges of jettisoned
exes write…’ no, sirs,
never will I ever
swallow this pride lionizing
that bitterness I refuse
to hide when prowling
for your ruin I,
in the fullness of

all my ruthlessness, candling
in our kindling of
my ire tinder enough
that my waxen wings
might aspire to alight
upon heights, church spires,
mighty enough that, spying
the world’s empires, my

flight toward oblivion might
inspire others who seek
what destruction we together
wrought is no better
than that power over
lovers each of us
in our wilderness and
whining sought, to accomplish

by lust’s witchery what
being versed in its
blushing art teaches to
those what touch alone
cannot: just how to
be ruled by that
flood which consumes us
fools who thought our

Selves prophets in beds,
the waves of drapery
of which beasted these
bested efforts and swallowed
up every Jonah we
fought not to become,
bellies full of laughs
we cannot fight off.