Untitled & Unfinished

Put my head to the ground
I am black with disease
I will not make a sound
save the shattering of my knees

I am rattling this cage
In search of a heart
Failures from pen to page
before I fall apart

Scars run like lay lines
with notations of the cost
cataloging crimes
and the congregation lost

These corners drawing near
I seek the words for prayer
with limbs mired in fear
and my tongue stripped bare

Watched myself for hours
and withered away all hope
Wreathed tragedies into flowers
and fashioned a rope

Betrayed all that was self
and poisoned tomorrow
Gathered all my wealth
and my treasure was borrowed

Endearingly collected your keys
and forged an idiot's crown
Reigned with liars and thieves
Concerted wisdom to tear us down

Blanched and bleached form
Articulated with amber cranes and Aries' spit
Intellect abrasive and worn
Faculties inflamed 'neath eyes barely lit

Thoughts recall the breaking of much greater men
For whom, life offered no solace or graces
Shall I forgive this kingdom and accept the sin
or retreat into the mind's untethered spaces

An animated form with no self
no want, no worth, no soul
Brittle with coal-like health
awash in the failures of my human role.