************************
a body spread in rose perfumed sheets
is torn by the bed of stemmed thorns.   
under the petal waves of a lily ocean
crawl serpents & worms
  turning soil & catching plague hazards.

              bells ring
              burying caskets
              in life & marking death. 

dark alley staring into sunflowers faces
stretches the cosmos
  versed in oscillation
          gas & mirror reflection illusions
          selling stained glass sapphire skies
                                      with slight of light tricks
                          flashing through unending night.
 
<<<
sleet virgin skin
untouched by sin
unpainted lips silent & tight
eyes grounded
pure of all evil
blind to the horizon
of pleasure
seeking sights 
under a silk headscarf
draped over the night 
          veil
        of holy               
vows where holes
  are stitched in
        binding
          cloth
             
a blank canvas
without earth toned
paint strokes
& waxy taint
        tossed coin airborne
head in clouds of saints
        tail smudged by Dorian Gray fate.

              ^^^
            pink satin skirt roots
                  rolled into torn jeans
                      stretching in fishnet winks
                            before hiking up in a mini
                                  summiting hippie tree in a train.
                        ivy seductress with an apple tongue         
                      who drinks fermented fruit potions
                          which drip neck turning nectar...
                              her toes are in the pool
                                splashing where fingers
                                    trickle in treats too.
                                        servant to \
                                                            pleasure
                                          master of /
                                             
                                      >>>
                                          feline student of Mut
                                          wearing cracked nutshell bangles
                                          her songs are read in burnt hymn books
                                                                where candles form circles
                                                                  for Isis to dance in flames.
                                          nine tailed tongue
                                          whips through West cloud bound ships
                                          ripping the sails
                                          in a hat tip to dark art scales.

                                          engraved on her papyrus
                                          of commandments
                                          are seven vice directions   
                                          to bone deep crimson fountains.

            ~~~~~~~~
    three carpets lead to an altar ::
lily white        |  dusty pine beige            |  black hole vantablack     
     
        ~ as a choir sings a looping note     
            from genesis to three pillared present ~

    on offer are three bottles of wine presented as::
|   cork sealed 

   ||  half drunk with torn, stained label

          |||  neck smashed, lying empty & shattered

an image strikingly haunting, and beautiful