Sacred Rite Solitude is a gray quiet series of moments Closing her fingers around mine Something so quiet So elusive A reverent sacrament to sorrow Spiraling out of my control Afterthoughts transfixed and lyrical Dissipate into fine veil tendrils Ensnaring my desires Striking through the interstices of my failing soul The face of my past never leaves me Sullen Disconnected Listless Shifting blurs of translucent emptiness almost too dim to see Intricate grieving divinities Imprisoned in my mind Intermixing with my blood Delineating my perceptions into well-defined eternities Collections of aberrant half-seen memories Drain away the colors of my life Delicate transparent filaments of time Fall silent as the futility of my life becomes evident A seductive intrusion prickles my skin Soothing alluring manipulations Touching me in forsaken, pagan ways A tangle of ancient spiritual rituals Obsessive sensations brush the far edges of my awareness Reaching into my conciseness Fiery lustful impressions break across my body Two life-fires intertwined Consecrated blood flows across my spirit Effusions that break apart in an uninterrupted surge of Eucharistic rite Creating serial and simultaneous distortions of The Sacrament A sculptured repertory of drifting chants My faith exasperated by endless misanthropy Scattering haphazardly inside me Sundering my path to salvation Draggled Solemn Endless Guided by devotion to the Divine Spirit No, No I am no yet clean Not yet ready of Her

Copyright 2002 M.D. Burke