Spirit

The Spirit spirals -

       viral -

       spread by

       gossip, sex and chance.

Epidemics of Enlightenment!

Plagues of Passion!

Stigmata stoplights drip drops on  the downtown bound.

The sweet breath of an easy lover speaks rosaries

       in the flicker of blinking violence.

Their is silence in the din

       if you begin to listen to what you don’t hear -

       between the whistle and the clang -

       between the click and the bang -

       between the rope and the man who hangs his hope

       on faithful surrender.

Remember to remember.

Pestilent purity gets under the skin of those whose doors

       open in,

       inviting breeze-blown bliss to sweet-kiss the lips

       of their shattered and their weak.

Who speaks infections of affection to the sickly and the damned?

Who spreads germs of generosity from hand

                                                                 to hand

                                                                          to hand?

Who hacks hunks of truth loose

       from the confused bowels of Byzantine self-deception?

Whose reflection shivers in the mirror?

Who draws you nearer in the fever of your desperation?

Whose voice do you hear in the sweating music

       of your golden hallucination?

Shiva shimmers in the glowing glimmer of your tower going up in flames

        in the name of the shame that has pushed itself

        to the surface

        to burst this bubble

        in the center of your deepest most empty.

It is sickness that has sent me -

        and its message

             now

                 delivered.