The Feast of Saint Andrew

lit my candle in the chapel of
St.Andrew. Gusto muted in my breast.
A Golden Christ from darkened stone was hung.
The first integrity of things. The soul.
With friendly strife, and fearfulness, I stand,
Guitar and muttered scripture. Blood red hot,
The city lights affright electric, burn
The sackcloth skies. The raven's wing engulfs
The water's frosted muddied glow. A bloom
Of soddened leafs from flooded trees has fell,
Their branches rot, by sandstone winds are dried.
A settled gloaming wood-fire smoke and haze,
Thin, buttered clouds are soaked in curves of light,
Horizons lined with monoliths of ice
That jut like blades of heat, that cut
The belly of blue heaven.
Wet wood-land dark, damp blackening skies, and with
musk-throated breath and moonlight scented lungs
I track daemonic, tracing demon thought.
From Godless concrete's face of hubris flat
With rust and floodlit glass, to spirit quickened winds
That menace red brick lanes and buckled garden squares
Where cracked skeletal ladies skirt the paths.
The clocktower money'd mundane rush of crowds
The steam-packed flocks, the loveless stranger's touch,
Hypnotic boredom's pretty made up face
That pouts sarcastic. Wintered eyes of stone.
Yes eyes, of turquoise, cheeks November red
Her skin of leather, plaidie patterned scarf,
With tweed and silk, and pointed boots of suede.
Her lips of apple flesh, black awkward hips,
Her shoulders naked, tanned and turning rouge.
Low-lidded eyes, the Virgin on the rocks,
Like mountain thicket, hair of bracken curls.
Hot beauty's hate and love's aggressive need,
Compassion, lust, empathic bolts of rage,
Gun-powder senses, bombs of rebel hell,
Unleavened flesh, the cocktail blood of God,
The devil's wine, the saints, alone, and drunk.
One woman's lashes flash to scourge conceit.
Cold mother, black madonna, Scotia,
The womb, the grave, and torment in between,
Red-golden lips, and eyeballs white as sharks,
Her gurly tempered living waters boil,
And sleeting words that prick my melting skull.
Contorted organs, clenching heart and stuck,
A fortress ribcage bleeding longing's powers.
The biting kiss of sin and sex and rape
And mind-fuck, psychic tricks of cruelty's bitch.
Self-centered sickness, giving in to fear,
Addicted anger, righteous narcissist,
Too quick to weep, a weak, insipid fake.
Reduce the gain. And cup the spitting flame.
Now Advent chills the ego's staggered shocks,
The migraine fits of victim, blame and hurt,
Self-medicating selfish bouts of huff.
Enough. Cool off. Hibernal walks alone.
The city smells of rose and toxic steel.
A sparkling shroud, a cycloramic fog
Blankets the private garden shrines of law,
Grand colonnades to make Delilah shudder.
Rain moistened spikes of measured cloisters. Quads
Like wombs of quiet mind, peaked church-like rooms
Of stained glass crystal guard from traffic's blast.
The library lanterns glow like embered hearths.
The crunching folds of autumn's sacrifice
Degrade to mold. The rippled lap of breeze
Becomes the wave of wind. Dank blemished roots
And blunted grass are stripped to carcass bone,
As scents of fruit-green hedges sweet in rain.
Not death, but ritual. Washed. A moment's rest.