Songs from a Sanctioned Sabbath
I. Cauldron Spawn
blue-blooded beggars,
with Gypsies walking waltz.
an aristocracy of debtors,
where the innocent at fault.
stardust to powder,
for a dream weaving twinner
spinning myths
to hold the cosmos tighter.
silk sheets to cover
the blanketing night,
dispatched are the agents
of the Feral Knights.
a cauldron bubbles and boils
tears of a weeping widow,
rising, creeping heat
the ignorant frog swims.
a coughing mother,
over sickly spawn.
bounded love
and deathly bonds.
II. Snakeoil Sunday
divide spell of
scabby lungs
spoken oracles said
to breathe
and bring ordained words
to stranded mules.
send word,
of opportunities born
from this strange new world
untold prosperity.
these
princes born of bronze chalices
as our indentured fingers bruise
and soak
the hardened calluses
in ginger seltzer
till their ideas shrivel.
severed tongues
live in between
the solid teeth
of the golden choir’s
ooze,
and
preacher charisma
with the cathedral harp
tuned to commoner blues—
and for those Sunday drivers,
steering south
on a wayward moon:
a divine investment
into the liquidated funds
of a son’s weeping wound.
sign your name
to the snakeoil swoon,
as Sister Alice sings to uncut
jewels.
III. Old World Requiem
napalm spread through the kingdom highlands
among you bitter-bred and aging lions,
and so hunts the skeptics with saber diamonds,
branding you as godless Typhons.
ashes claimed from the last horizon,
your ancestors born from stories of titans,
so take empty glory from the last uprising,
& pick the grave they decide you die in.
bonds broken like brittle brotherhood
as your bible burns by their flame like kindled wood.
the cardinals execute the pope at
first light of the New Age of Asper
and the bishop sends his priest
to delude and damn the pastors.
Beelzebub bidding,
with the barter and the banter,
cuts the tongues of choirs,
and sinks the ark with its own anchor.
day your last goodbyes
with parting prayers at the pen.
your anointed voices of Mercury will never speak again.
IV. Stimulate Through Imperial's March
Archangel Michael
tames a sleeping paper tiger.
my bronze statue of Athena
stands firm against
an aerial dogfighter.
nimbus clouds; nebulous twitch.
I’m a skyward hound; the atmosphere shifts.
my mind miner digs,
from just two bundled twigs.
I detox with a malt before
the last fatal swig.
I collect moonstone gems from my village’s
rubble,
finding mental bends from a parallel
struggle.
I break two parts
to mend a couple,
standing reposed under overcast,
baring callous knuckles
V. Sanctuary
In this chapel
of the body
of my life,
I take no blessings,
I marry no wife.
No bad omen can beckon to me,
nor which cast forth misfortune
to which I may wallow and
bear forth, for the only sins I
can allow are my own,
with just me
staring into
the bare-faced
Philosopher’s Stone.
I find it to be hollow.
So I slice my gut,
and map out my entrails
so that I may follow.
I die again at this place,
a blood-christened Apollo.