The heart, losing all human grip,
plunders the carnival of masks
but rubbed raw licks its wounds
by vats of gin & quotations.
Let us, Madonna, forge arcana, our hot speech:
For always memory batters the ship of love
crippled about the wake of human seas:
Voyagers always on their ancient prowl & watch
do prey on brats & gypsy temptresses
who with vestal spikes open their breasts.
The evil snow falling between us,
Let signs once-known blast
the crystal wall of wrath & secret vice
for memory, Madonna, must not drown in blood & ice
of tropic sins & seasons, disinhabiting guile.
Warily, your telluric growl
nestles on the man of stone
that spews all context of crowns
all modes of wisdom, all roads to Rome
Black as stone, silence settles on our arctic lawn.
Must it be sized why love is all?
If remembrance is pain, do not all pain remember—
Love, Madonna, also feasts on daggers, sneer.
