Twelve and one

Again, we take to our mouths,

Ringed with crust of sleep and dry,

To the reflective touch of quivering lights,

In the bowels of a church brimming with sin,

Pouring beans like china crystals,

That burst their bellies in fiery waters,

That we may wet our bloodless tongues,

Stiff and tuned to the alarum bell,

Of rote beginnings to a godless prayer,

To this flameless funeral pyre lit with static nerves,

And begin the yellow plunder of our empty bowls,

That others may cauterize their yearning flesh,

With our warnings.

Before, we played at hiding stones,

Pulled the moth-ringed pall before our lips,

When the still ailing clattered their crooked teeth,

Measured mercy by the give of our pockets,

Thieving for coins on which we sucked,

To melt to a mercurial ooze,

Before the dusky craving beasts bowed before,

The greater power of clean blood and slates,

Now we sought them in their hovels,

Where they orbit poisons through their needles,

Skinned pills cresting the marble top,

Pushing back Sundays till the end,

Where we will hand them,

Twelve ways to surrender.  

Today, your neophyte wields its white flag,

Bent child of amorphous summers spent in suburbs,

With you, sharing white blood before the break,

Of skin through which the waxen horse treads.

Remember him, your mate in mud and sand,

Pasting perfect rings of color beneath your tongue,

Before your eyes, leaving you hope-sick with mirages,

Hanging from the damp flakes of skin,

You shed for him, did he but ask,

Each time the chew became the bite,

For you to draw him a picture of this place.

Tomorrow, again, frost will frame his motions,

Until the empty worm has blown so wide,

That the dig for more becomes futile,

And he is come to you for nothing,

Other than relief.

Who can refuse it then?