False Confession

Jagged new moon of remorse Roils riled mindflesh Glares down from a private sky Raining baleful ore Lodestones for obsession, ingested Burnished by the working Of memory’s maudlin hands Burning bolus of guilt Scallops tender heartflesh Leaves scars whispering secret tongues Compressed for years Deep within my pit of a chest Oh, prideful silence Suffocate this unseen ache Cruel ruby of sorrow Time-ripened survivor Bound up in my gut No crimson wisdoms rise From your mirrored depths Just bloodied refractions Of what I have done

In the end, you always remembered That first moment so clearly When you knew by the cold in your bones That time was running short Some subtle scent burning on the wind Blown in from flayed continents Echoes in ash of abandoned souls Singing: “you too will join us” The beasts and birds fled, but you stayed Conceited child, you prayed The bonds are all broken The spirits are loosed To ravage the failing land And alight in the parched trees No bargains to broker with flame No laws to forfend against flame No mercy to plead for from flame Just the heat, then the dark Then the dark There, in your scorched grave You learned at last to change

Now you learn what you are made of What grinding hours you may endure The true depths of your dedication To purity Self-negation: the highest ethic Stone brow and clenched jaw mark the pure of faith As you bring forth the dream, commit your body In silence Now you learn what you are made of What grinding hours you may endure The true depths of your dedication To clarity Cast away indulgence, all unnecessary things All compromise that binds you to the veil Divide the crowds as a stone in a river Unmoving, smooth, and blank Surrender yourself to the will that stirs within Deafen yourself to the noise of temptation Deny yourself, for there is no self to deny Complete yourself in oblivion Mourn not for what is lost in the world without Where the air itself is rot, it is a triumph to burn And only sorrows fill the skin that you so long to shed Now you learn what you are made of What grinding hours you may endure The true depths of your dedication To release Annihilate yourself Bring forth the dream

For an instant, I hesitated As you cowered beneath me My limbs coiled for violence, but Some weakness pleaded: mercy, mercy But the blow fell The wound opened My path was chosen Forever The blow fell The rift rent wide No forgiveness No rapprochement, never In a secret cathedral given to cruelty I enshrine the livid memory Of your face twisted in disbelief Of your form wracked with agony The blow fell The bones shattered My malice sang With pleasure The blow fell The light went out No remorse No redemption, never The leech called shame set upon me Leapt from your wreck to my flesh But it no more feasts upon me For I seized up its body And ground it into the dust

Keep those ravaged joints churning For just one more mile It used to feel so easy When the body seethed with life Bidden by a vibrant mind and guided By eyes that still accepted light But that was some other man, forgotten Buried by weathered hands Stiff and arthritic, rigid with calluses, woebegone With the residue of their trespasses In service to that withered usurper Who lurks in the mirror alone One last task remains Before your wretched husk Defy the grip of senescence Go bravely unto your death And in this lonely valediction The ultimate chance to atone To be released from all your sins May your final chapter record your reclamation May this broken journey make you whole in the end

A clouded memory Of salt and surrender And the flailing limbs of a child Caught in the undertow Reaching across the decades With claws of silt, it seizes me In the moment you needed me most My will dissolved like the foam From the faraway shore I heard you calling me You were sinking beneath the waves And I did nothing Bobbing like jetsam, gasping for breath But so sure of salvation from the brine From the faraway shore I heard you calling me You were sinking beneath the waves And I stood frozen As the swell took you, at last you hated me For the conceit of strength, when in the end I was so weak I heard you calling me You were sinking beneath the waves And I did nothing