To stare into the candle’s vacant flame
Until it burns each orbit clean of self;
The world made flesh and blood inside of thought —
This rabbit-warren of preconceptions and lust
Torn raggedy-paged from sun-rotted magazines
Faded echoes of ancient longings and
The febrile concupiscence of memory.
This poem too is one; written in ink, not blood.
I sit in masturbatory solitude, erect and impotent,
Like those ancient icons,|
Those failed faded promises of redemption.
Only this one candle is real;
Defining itself by immolation, it
Lights all these illusions scrawled on pages.
This tangible transubstantiation of solids into quanta
Ties me to this bed with lines of force
As invisible as lies, as fragile as love.