A Man Speaking Birds and Leaves

By my mayhem once he was brought,
A man speaking birds and leaves,
Like a black billow leading hordes
Of waves in their smashing heaves.

The rider of the reckless sands,
Submitting time and burying hopes,
Transforming fires by his hands,
His hair of gloom, his eyes are holes.

Raving winds and rains bolted in
Possessed by the autumnal throes,
They skimmed along under the skin
As he kissed my fingers and toes.

My thoughts clotted crucified,
Left slain in the deepest garden,
Sealed between the odours of night,
And the layers of silence, so ardent.

Forbidden fruits ripened red
Behind the lids, in the eye-globes.
He shot in the apple on my head,
Then ripped off the ivy’s ropes -

Ill weeds rooting me to earth,
Twining my bed and my windows,
Hiding me blind in a curse,
Curving my wrists and elbows,

Crooking my ankles and knees...
He wrenched open and unrolled
My body into a moaning abyss
Edged by the torrents of gold,
 
Unshackled the tempest of lust,
Drew expanses of storms and seas
Against the valleys of rust
Upon the capillary trees.

Invisible in the water’s fads
The rays of his flashing sword
Cut through the swarms of gnats -
The nerves in my spinal cord,

The arteries brimmed with clay,
The lungs in their spongy swells,
The heart beating me astray
To the cross of my parallels,

To the point that could never be seen
Where my love couldn’t have a name,
Where the funeral fires within
Couldn’t make my desires tame.

The skull, blackened by the pyre,
Would stare as an empty token
Of love that had risen so high
With the smoke in the dusk of unspoken.