kyrie eleison

i am peering into the hole
again, and
i am stirring my finger in the
tea-fragranced depths

there is a lake, a
reservoir laid out inside
the body terrain

blue demanding of darkness,
midnight indigo and the
color of gasping blood

the inside a cavern that echoes
and bruises the night, the
inside a wreath of songbirds

a gallery of knives, lift a
sail or two against the winds
watch the nighttime carry
stars in the zephyr

such a vacancy of soul, there
dwells a spirit but yet none--
both holy and deserted

i love yet do not know of its warmth
i feel yet am numb as a sainted corpse

shivering a fever in the forehead
excavation of a fathomless yield
the heart is empty even as it is full,
impossible tides beneath questionable moons

i am both a birthplace and a grave,
marked with dawn and decay, i am
perhaps in motion but in a
backwards blooming--shy bud
opening and closing and withering and
bursting all at once in doomed synchronicity
consumed by paradox, anomaly aching, a
wounded enigma perched in a day-old bouquet

laurel, i wear with beauty and tears
laurier, je porte avec la beauté et les larmes