I.

In your absence my Self becomes Another...
stumbling like Edgar Allen…
wasted… decrepit…

My body bludgeoned by goons,
dragged from polling booth
to infested polling booth

to vote in the name of Others—
Names that have been pilfered
from the engravings

of crumbling tombstones—
Names of Souls long since buried
now in hope of Resurrection…

II.

My wrists strung
high upon the pendulum,
my guts vomit face first

into the pit. No cups
of flaming cotton to suck
in my anguished flesh.

III.

Look at the Image of my face
refracted within
the glossy porcelain sheen
of these bathroom tiles.

Look at this Icon
convoluted, blown apart,
fragmented
by splinter bombs:

The shrapnel of razor stubble
claws deep beneath
the papier-mâché presence
of my plaster façade

before being seduced
by the gestures of a gigolo
beneath the furrows of the pliant skin
of my own face lift.

IV.

Bewildered
by the full ascendancy
of the sun,
I shriek

in sheer horror
at that stray mutt
that cuddles
for warmth beside me.

I watch as it delicately
sniffs each patch of clover,
each bud of daffodil.
I witness its snout

trace the ground
like a metal detector
in search of land mines
planted in back alley wars

that now tease
the toes of infants
before reaching up
to lick my lips.

A cross between a terrier
and a pit bull:
It is the perfect beast
to be converted as a pet…

V.

All other creatures are but
mirrored chimeras of my Vanity
to whom I babble
believing each to be Someone
other than who they are.

They are the solemn Priests
who detail my confession
with hollow ears, the masks
of my non-pollinating
gratification.

VI.

Each noon I await
the Madonna of Fortune
who sporadically bears

the cancelled white slips
of the recidivist punctuations
of narcissistic editors.

In the tempestuous silence
my phone rings unanswered:
It is impossible to hear

the whining voices
of Others—or my own—
my skull stuffed

inside a sackcloth
of famished
felines…

Not at all a débauchée of dew,
a goat licks the flesh
from my well-salted feet…

VII.

The air is not fit for cockroaches to breathe!!!
Contented survivors through the eons

their heads roll within this barrel of excrement,
or else drown within this cesspool of methane.

Weighted are my lungs with heavy chains
loaded with dice, cards, and a clay pipe.

To breathe, to walk the streets of burning coals:
These are now decreed Felonies!

VIII.

At long last I am arraigned before the Inquisition.
Its illustrious members suddenly appear

from behind a maze of sterile bureaus
painted the same pigment of flesh

hooded in black and white shrouds
folded over wigs tainted with rodent hairs.

Upon the spiked chair of Interrogation
they ram a heretic’s fork beneath my chin

and take meticulous notes that detail
my every scream behind the iron gag.

In fear I appeal to the Court to fully condemn
my acts of treason and perjury, recanting:

Excurge domini
et
judica causam tuam
Abiuro!
Abiuro!
Abiuro!

IX.

In the ordeal of fire and water,
my Soul sinks in profound possession
once balanced against the heavier
weight of the Holy Book...
Let these doxological judges
play their rites of exorcism…
I confess my guilt as I strut
in waiting their judgment
of my latest fashion statement
in the infinite wisdom
of winner-take-all majority rule…
My cotton Saco Bendito
is colorfully embroidered
in a yellow decorative display
of flowers and red devils
beside the glowing crimson
crucifix of St. Andrew.
The pole is made of cypress;
the cross bar, of palm;
the footrest, of cedar.
Inscribed upon olive,
the Titulus broadcasts
my Acts of Treason
to the entire planet.

X.

The nightmare has only begun to repeat itself
after the apostate moment when sleep—
like Montfort’s shock troops—slaps me awake
and thrusts me over a jock's mare.

In the servility of direct commandments,
my compagne di ventura parachutes
into the midst of yet another Holy War.
I cannot resist the fiats of noble Conquistadors—

nor the spurious decrees of Pope Innocent.
My lance jousts against the swords
of swirling windmills. My armor smelts
within the suffocating smoke of flaming brush.

My Soul is fueled with books filled to the brim
with the kindling wood of blasphemy.
Never can be there be any emancipation
from heretics and filii diaboli!!!

XI.

In the sacrilege of my August madness
I wait for your Andalusian return
and long for those Albigensian nights
when we once thrashed in our ritual as gazelles

the sweat of our naked bodies anointed
with the sweet myrrh of maple leaves
in that epoch when my entire body and spirit
was engulfed by the flames

of the Inquisitor’s auto-da-fe
after being falsely accused of heresy.
May that I once again kiss
your algal eyes no longer Absent!

Now is the time to defy
the omnipresent plague of Intolerance
where Liberty—in pathetic self-pity—
withdraws itself for fear of persecution…