I whisper your name as an invocation
a susurration into sunken night
a plea, a prayer, a petition
for your intercession in the darkness
I do not believe in gods or demons
yet you are sacred as I make this imprecation
and fiendish brutes haunt this landscape
of distorted time and mirror halls
Mournful reminiscence begets a chilling stillness
and reticent disquiet of incoherent supplication
Did you always need such sacrifice to fulfil
adorative desire?
My first-born is already long gone, and I have
only these ashes and astringent embers left to give
but I offer what I have
as I always did, as complete and entire
as I am able. Lock, stock, and two smoking
in-the-mouth barrels
an atonement or offering, a forfeit to your
sacrosanct and sanctified saturninity
In the murmur of your name
your nom de guerre of eponymous assault
I have laid myself on the altar, chanting
the litany of relinquished reverie
the entreaty to the consecrated profanity
of your bare embrace
I am the impious priest of your reverent shrine
imploring only that you hear my appeal