J'accuse!

like a drowning woman going
down for the last time
with Rasputin's
hands around her neck,
a love poem will always get
the best of me,
words pirouette and spiral
out of sequence
licking with feverish tongue:

my Accuser sits on
a moderator's chair
a throne made neither
in Heaven nor in Hell
"You write vapid and
empty words, but no more
no less than anyone else in this
forlorn group of starving
souls and hungry words.",
hollow like the breath
passing through a
song, senseless of
a naked truth, sitting
quietly across a river…

honourable thieves,
we steal from
one another
thoughts
we later judge
contrivances,
affirmations and denials
in a kettle black,
stirring
mouthful after mouthful
of stinging hymns,
processionals of confessionals
we let fall
from our untamed hearts.

Who told me I was naked?
Was it Love
who knew no other?

Was it
a serpent
of miscreation?

I shall never be a white-robed
priestess or guru
with flowers dancing
at my bare feet,

no-one shall bring to me
their secret hearts, bring
their fearsome prayers
of golden dust,
tied like unseen chains
to my darkest water,

I shall never be
a Poet
in a garden
where lilies sing.