I pulled out ligaments from my body
and dressed them with my own veins.
Art Nouveau tickling a mortician's hemp.

Opaque words crawl from my mouth
and ride upon the wings of chatoyant tears
towards the reclusiam in the back of
my mind.

I perch on the floor like a raven In Extremis;
Eyelids kissing blood. Closed. Opened –
in a frantic dance, a tribal trance.

And the mirror that I try to scratch
swallows me through twisted close-ups.
It's a corral beneath a stony firmament.
I'm rehearsing the hearse.