in all madness, faith

That threat of rain passes just out of reach, leaving only a chill wind and a gray air seeping through my nested bones. It moves to the west towards the south, dark and graven and aching just beneath the tide of breathing. And it is gull and crow, the gliding shadows and the sinking sun. The whole drowned town sensation whetting the bone-blade of the horizon, the clamber of words stuck between my teeth. The lost conversations that come and leave us while we are alone.

I am stuck with the broken record of my own false prophet, playing over and over through those sacrificial hours, adding every flat certitude, summing it all for a loss. I am left with these bitter remainders of hollow faith and reckless assertions, the prattle of madness wearing the mantel of the holy. Every misstep a careful calculation, every intention for the common good. All sin has fled that failing flesh, while I remain this vessel sundered into shards. One voice divinity while mine is archeology, pieces to be put together to solve the puzzle of all my mistakes. The world delivers to each a portion, never measured, full of surprise.

I am to witness the empty pockets, the slaughter of tomorrow. I am to paste my warnings upon the vivid mirror, to comfort and cajole, to render these rabbits and holes despite their fevered onset. I am to speak until my mouth is rested, to be silent until the spirit heals. Nothing works, but the work is all. Nothing is said, though the deluge lasted days. That made up saviour burns all the evidence, setting his alibis aflame. I await the night, and the weather. My hands safely at my sides as the inevitable conflagration begins, consoled by my latest failure, watching the sky fall down.