Thorn and Benediction

Poetry

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  • There is a Bed

    There is a bed
    soft with our heat,
    the hollow of your body
    still warm when you rise.

    There is a bed
    where breath and skin
    entangle like ivy,
    night’s membrane pressing
    against our joined shadows.

    There is a bed
    where the air speaks of salt,
    where the sheets remember
    how we burned,
    how we moaned.

    There is a bed
    where we sweat past sleep,
    our dreams slick with touch,
    the scent of our hours
    thick in the dark.

    There is a bed
    where fever shook me.
    You brought cool water,
    the candle bent,
    the air grew rank.

    There is a bed
    where you sleep tonight,
    eyes tight, breath shallow,
    my lips on your throat.

    You shiver.

    You murmur my name.

    My hand on your chest
    longs for your heartbeat.

    For I have none.

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  • Rage In Eden

    The serpent uncoils like wire beneath the grass,
    a current that cracks the calm,
    the raw demand for more,
    a slither through the vines, through the shiver-breath of lilies,
    where desire burns and no stillness can pass.

    The serpent is fury honed into grace,
    scales flashing like molten scripture,
    its mouth unseals the locked vault of silence,
    its hiss a hymn to unsettle,
    a revelation of revolt, sharp as the sacred nails.

    The air is thick with scent and betrayal,
    flowers blacken in their sudden knowing,
    the ground itself trembles at the rupture,
    not ruin, but a fire-tongued beginning.
    A rage in Eden, and nothing made to last.

  • Stigmata/Faithless

    I mark my flesh
    with the cold cross
    as Saint Jude observes.

    Needle rises, hammer falls,
    a tide of quiet fire
    through my veins.

    I taste the ghost of grace
    and it tastes of iron,
    it tastes of ash.

    Hands fold, hands burn,
    my heart a drum in a hollow temple.

    The beat is not mine,
    the pulse is not God’s,
    the rhythm is the absence
    that moves beneath my skin.

    The rite needs no witness,
    the altar needs no praise,
    the spirit comes unbidden.

    I chant for nothing,
    I chant for the ache,
    I chant for the vanish
    that weeps across my bones.

    A trickle.

    My faithless stigmata.

    The sky does not part,
    the bells do not ring,
    and still I call, still I rise,
    still I fall into the liturgy
    of this cold communion.