Cannot

That is the colour of anguish,

flat and impenetrable, cannot

be reduced any further than

the nothing it has become,

in total need of something.

Oh, you of the pure and

unassailed Light, the easy holiness,

you do not know the anguish

that has impounded me; you do not

know the Nights whose black summons

have ravaged my soul; you do not know how

heavy the sky has become

upon my bony, brittle shoulders,

as I try to uphold

the weight of my colossal aspirations

in spite of this

deep-seeded

unworthiness before God.

Oh, you of the Light,

you do not know my darkness,

unchanging

fetter, eternal clamp

upon the hoarse dog of my city,

upon the crippled corpse of my love.

Vie as I do for the impenetrable Light,

it is always back to this,

this

endless darkness.

I who have attained to the summit of sin.

I who have been hurled from the mounts of the Lord,

and tossed into darkness

to perish

as I do

not deserve.

02/24/2017

Richmond