52: Rituals

1.

Tired fire

is what I cannot abide: weakened candles,

feathery embers,

that gruesome debasing

of its groaning, teasing safety. The lost phoenix plume,

stretching above the wax.

The sun's loan to night,

once debased the value is there;

once gone it is needed;

once absent, missed;

there is no wood in my chamber. No guardian

in my spine. My dark lover, aóratos.

2.

Bring dry bodies I cracked. She went, has left me;

it is too dark

to seek her. If I could dream

in flame

I would take an evergreen

from low then

out its short reach, progressing; I would

swell the lips of its skin away, split the air -

with my lick burn water; sugar would run;

my mane would sing out into gray coils: consume.

3.

Tired -

She would not have me burning, fast as I might travel

my lit way.

She wishes me

remain

this calculation of warmth: stay home, begin in the corner of a room

from there

build it out along the wall, go no higher than the roof, do not

touch anything that matters.

4.

Quills in the dark - ruined lines - I am long

past calculated heat. What you

do not want

is where you concentrate. You rest

in fear and that

is what you will have - that is the truth of it;

this is the rule

of life;

what you break

to,

how you

surrender it,

will take you forward.

5.

The fire is out - there is a river from a hose

on the

stone beached in soot;

cast in eruption, it sits in grounding patience while

the river rushes its vein, whispers

off its strength,

erodes

it into the current where

its memory,

piece by piece extinguishes.