The Book of Yeezus

Every rumor about God’s face has been bad news

I believe there’s a wound above me     I’m just

the wound of everything else       A whole language

for injury       then me       Rust-child       Arbor of   bad

muscle       A man is a story which ends

when something tears       I keep saying this

to reassure you that I was born       Rabid       Blueing

my own lonely       In the dark I gleam       My jaw

a moon’s worth of petals       Touchless, touchless

I dream phalanxes in the absence of hands

I garden or I God       Either way       decapitated bells

drip from every passing tree       At the crown

of each leg       a congress of bruised songbirds

swear we were all born as revenge on something

The king’s eyes stare despite the punctuation

of the sword       Bone-kiss       Blood-Litany     Armada

is a pretty word for too many       but how do you

begin to forgive the branch       I sing buckshot-

orchestral       Romance the trigger and moon

upon moon upon moon until whole years pass

in a twitch       Touchless, touchless       Mercy

of which I am ashamed       I know I could violence

Born in the contusion’s grammar       I could

American Artist       Gold Fang       Kill Two Birds

with one metaphor       Stretch my hands

until something tears in worship or demolition

Anthem       Anthem       Descendant of  the Wolf

scavenge the song I flex across a man’s tongue

I want to close the king’s eyes       I want to froth

his blood with petals until a river of Camellias

Armada       Armada       Recursion of mourning

At dawn I grief you back       In my own quiet

I want the sword for myself