Saline Sunset

Tomorrow I sail into a heavy forest,
and shall learn
what poets seek in life,
the Mysterious Trick
of shadow fire.
And I will be of flame.

For the Ancients
let justice be done in unholy disgrace.
Hang this wretched body
with boiling furies,
lay it down before miserable laws.
Honour the hood and lunette!
Meat machines
all we are.

Devour this bloodied bastard
you paper judge,
God in cannibal skin!
Let this pallid life and rotten bone
be your terrible soup.
Gut me in sleep,
throw my arms to priests
so they may fold them in prayer
and give these legs to children
to skip beyond chains.
But my heart I keep beyond the howl,
for fires of Saints and heroes
will dry my veins.
Parched flesh holds no Sin.

So to fiery crowds
tomorrow I go,
in a perfect pose
for the death obsessed.
Send for hail and thorn,
come see the gallows buckle
under my flabby skull.
My exit,
dying alive!
A blizzard for chapel idols,
owls and gulls be funeral coal...

@Steven Francis Poems 2008