However much hurt you give me
I will always be willing to carry it
You are my Goddess
And I, your ass,
Willing to bear all the burdens
Your purity does not permit
Every misfortune
Or swing of the axe
That life levels at you
May it be my own instead
May I be the scapegoat
Of all your suffering
Who can be cast off into the wilderness
Where he can do no one any more harm
Jackals will gnaw at my ankles
Swarms of insects and locusts
Will harry me constantly
Urging me onwards
To my inevitable collapse
Yet I
Bleary-eyed and braying
Will be anaesthetized by love
The more the love
The more the pain
The more the Heaven
The more the Hell
My ribcage will be a marimba
Upon which King Yama can declare me conquered
My fleece will be made into slippers
So you continue to dance on my woes
Even in my absence
Goddess, Goddess,
Unknowing Goddess
Has anyone ever been as ignorant as you?
But the ignorance is all my own
It is the sharpened throne
Upon which I slaughter myself
The king has used up
His twelve year turn
The populace are in outrage
Frothing into a frenzy
Carrying me through crowds
And bellicose hoards
Prostitutes scourge me with chains
And vicars piss on my wainscoting
I am the mould growing upon the world
I do not blame you
For wanting to remove me
Have done with this wretch
This champion of lies
Cast him into the bonfire of vanities
And make him vomit forth
A final quatrain or two
We’ll tie him to the tracks
And be the final straw
That breaks the camel’s back
Let’s not be hasty now
Let me suffer slowly
Let every last incineration
Be like an intimate conversation
By candlelight
“Isn’t it romantic?”
The werewolf declares
Licking out my eye sockets
Bringing filth to purity
And purity to filth
Radiance to obscurity
And obscurity to silt
It’s a tomb with a view –
What I can I say?
So I will love you all extremely
Insanely,
And devotedly
As you scourge me
Instead of
My love
A Poet's Life 