Renewal By Vice

This is more
or less than
Carnival theory:

Wear the mask
& exercise
(exorcize?)
sequestered
want.

Cherry pipe-
smoke, amber
liquid, melting
icecubes, filter
flicking, pleasure
thought, bliss
imagined, guiltless
grapple:

Do all roads lead
to born again?

-------------------
In other words: Beware the damage of too much denial of small temptation.

Part I: Fog

What hangs over us,
here, now, was once
a part of something else:

Coherence is giving
from excess to cover lack
(each what they need most).

To adhere is thoughtless,
the way the tongue triggers
a long remembered prayer
without the deliverance of grace.

Let my promises keep to their motions,
falling like thin sheets of rain.

May they soak into the skin,
mingle with the ever-turning blood,
filter through systems & deposit in cells.

May it all cohere, always changing,
may each new leaf, needle, & cone echo the code.

Let there be someone to rest beneath
the successes & failures of a meaningful life.

Amen.