all heaven abloom

adorns the naked cobalt moon

asleep on branches crystalline

reticulate

receding ghosts of afterimage

following the flash

startled bird

don't lose your voice just yet

identity dislimned in a haze of saffron dust

a dust that hangs these cloistered hours

of anamnesis ephemeral enshrined

and loft away some distant herald

a gaunt and death-majestic tree

an altarpiece enveloped in a fugue of red

we dare to vanquish 

some brightly imagined ophidian fiend

whose vatic feathers cindered carbon-black

and looming large

unfurl behind our every dread

writhing           wild        wide

grey wraiths of cloud

exiled from heaven

estranged from earth

mute shreds of liquid light

beckoning our souls

between the veil

beyond the fruit of Tantalus.

by some strange ritual of unwrit alchemy we drank -

that pungent - heavy - vintage dark -

of claret rivulets by violence bled - released -

from sorrow’s swollen vast impaled heart -

an aching vessel heaving fierce - perpetual - behind the ribs -

of that itinerant sorcerer from Nazareth -

and by that token - taken - broken - given -

we shared a table - with all the myriad blazing archangels

amidst their ageless flight.