And so, form manifests yet never sustains,
or warmth grows while yet insisting temporality.
Purpose is never distinct
for action is always a poor reflection of intent.
Trusting that wellness should abound,
we are no more than sullen, passing moment,
most profound in our misgivings.
Ah must then in this stinking mud
all askew with flesh and bone,
(the blood a tiresome rhyme already drawn)
you are come before me and then departed reborn.
I see the slime of puss and gore
the tattered unshelter of your desire
a passive only begotten, belated,
that we in turn be berated,
forgotten in the storm.
Then take this in the tattered shred of thine gentle hand
and in the dead of it see how grand it is
that we will work it good, ever fit for buggeration.
Oh, larger now by far to your attentions
that you might call upon deliverance to void me.
Work me, work me, oh Jesus, Jesus, that you too are hung
as I to you
and all praise be sung.
Yes, yes, oh Jesus. Yes, yes.

Yet I am thwarted by a variety of considerations,
some perhaps more considered than others,
that by fate's curtains I might be strung upon a line.
Oh, circumspection is ever a departure.
Listen, I can be more lucid, or even lurid, should you wish
I can tickle your fancy, give head,
plum the pudding and break the bread,
cut to the quick, cut the crap,
bite the bullet and take the wrap.
But is this glory or just another day?
Ravage this glacier, savage this alp,
I'll mountain thee in a muddle of moraine,
have thee better than a courtesan,
yet still you sing the cant of revolution,
or even the cunt of it.
Turned, my boy, turned indeed,
my lips on yours where once they were,
or better bleed a poesy of paucity when we could've
and should've, but didn't.
Then scream out benevolence,
grime this grandeur if you dare.
But still now, be still.
A chill pervades
and a waning moon delivers slithers of silver light,
ice upon the fire, kissed and hissed,
and I do believe that you wilt before it
crusted with all the jewels of Solomon.
These are potions alchemic in design
and these I shall gather to lay at thy table.
And these? These are devotions
lay then, lay that I might take thee,
not overturned, but returned at last to this place.
Oh blister me, blister you,
but not many now, too few by far for solace.
See the marks? See the scars, this deathly pace, these deadly hours?
By your hand, oh magnitude, by your hand,
for what is youth but age before its time
that innocence be in the doing?
Mark this tis in the doing, yet I say tis already done'.
Three rusted nails and you're a Christ to my eyes
ready for the ruins of sacrifice.
And in my ears?
The pith of denial,
and don't fancy you can fence the beast
nor even for a while contain it
least through any humour of yours.
Touch me and I am invisible,
insubstantial in grace,
for grace is consummation
yes, consummatum est'
that now we might lay down our heads awhile to rest
I saw thee in that light, yes, let us sleep now.

Copyright: ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING
Writer(s): Penny Rimbaud