cross of cards

a cross of cards regards

and speaks in pantomime

the colours fade unmade

by memory and time

the shadows dance askance

suspicious of your whim

indifference suspense

illusions gone to grim

there’s no dharma karma

kisses in the distance

your path of least persistence.

mango

like a mango

my heart is not a freestone 

and you will find it complicated

to feed

to fill your need

but I bleed ambrosia and magic

in ink and photons

Poitiers

there is an intimacy beyond the mere intersecting flesh.

but no one is ready for it.  steady enough we bravado our ways

through our days for the sullen nights in languages preverbal

and conveniently hardwired from the ancient brain.

you were a lousy lover, as liars always are, too far from the truth

to be able to transmit the synesthetic delight on the oversight.

the only person I lie to is myself, not wanting to have wasted

the years and faux passions like a hungry man eating dirt

when that is all he finds at the bottom of the pit he is chained in

by his own expectations and insurrections against the beauty of life.

expatriate

exile and the inclusive banishment

vanishment behind a cloud of magician’s prestidigitation

and the puff of smoke and fire

like a bullwhip made of dreams and broken glass

invocation.  coronation.  theocricide.

Tempered glass that passes for the lens of the eye of God

I do not recall in perfect clarity the taste of a woman’s lips.

the currency of seduction.  the toll into the palace of Aphrodite.

for I have lived my appropriate years in the desert where slips

the shards of self-delusion out, away and the darkness so bright we

conceal ourselves that we cannot burn away to the crust

we have folded within to guard and ward as we conceal

the resplendent truth that is evident by the ashes and dust

that coat our feet and fingertips as we crawl to the well to kneel

in confession to the love gods of forgotten religions, with my psalter.

praying they will forgive us, for that is their principle of redemption,

that everyone deserves a second chance to dance before the altar

and proclaim their faith in tongues of flame and the fool’s exemption.

love is too feeble a word for the transcendence of pyre and desire

I have seen through the eyes of stained glass and fire.

idolatry

the argent sergeant gave the order

and we followed in our line

over the cliff

for no purpose 

other than evidence of faith

ripping the stitches

don’t move too soon, too much, or you’ll tear the wound

open again

and again

sedentary goes from temporary to the way of the nosferatu

just slowly

but inexorably

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.