Since it was writ last year, this entry into the White Sunday poems has taken on a cult following. Note the brief cameo by the evangelist.
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White as illusions, cast to shade scarlet and crimson
and the black of the human heart in better lights,
transcendent nights where the perfectability of a kiss
becomes a sexorcism that banishes demons of clay and brass,
glass spiders in graven images imagined to be more
than they were less of, more than what they were,
and of a substance hammered by the artisans
who knew well their craft as they laughed
at their own cunning, running rings around Saturn
and laying myth to the Achilles Heel
of the lost worshipers of polytheism.
A communion of stones and water,
bones that slaughter even after the flesh fails
and the evangelist sails for a purer night
than offered as sacred sacrifice to fallen idols.
How long can you pray to the failed, the scrailed words
on tablets of earth and bone, the deeper demons remain
and the pain is inhuman, put aside for a time to come.
“We’re going to use nine megaton warheads in space and we’re not sure they’re large enough to be effective. Why would you even consider using kiloton-range surface-to-air warheads as back-up?” The answer was succinct. “Because they’re all we have.”
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