Secret Rhythm

a prisoner in marble, poised
proud stance, frozen hero -
breath, celebrate, and decay.

The Fool's heart whose voice
is a liquid growl that sounds like singing,
a soft breeze of velvet smoke
in a secret rhythm of suffocation,
a throbbing fever of hidden fire
and devouring time.

Here god is a broken ghost,
revered in violation, a cannibalized
victim whose salvation is
too little too late,
the poisoned salt harvested from
the belly of a dying sky.

Our haunted home of bone
embraces the foggy perfume of
some long-after slow waking
that remembers its desire
but never its need.