oh passion, have thee wicked and warped;
frantic for masked steeples,
a church in my throne
man of maelstrom star-signs;
Folded in wispy faints.

map the constellations, nearly
perfect in alignment,
brimming with potential, something
forming out of dust and nothing,
primeval cartography, can’t be wrong.

if the ground is swaying, inhaling
the gods of shallow mote;
flecks of tenderness and seething,
settling in my words,
are my whispers biting now?

Whispers, like many vice grips,
clinging to the vestiges of carpentry
I once called pet projects.
I’m eroded by them,
in a swirl of sandpaper and sparks.

a frenzy of tunneled pings;
soldered with promise and
smelt into cherry-scented iron fists,
knuckles up and bearing down;
time-smeared woe, holy face

furrowed by the ripples
at the onset of evening,
grimacing in attempts to grin
at the man in the moon,
whose smile is wider, brighter.