The Lucifer Cantos 4/13

IV

I load your hell inside my heart,
your paradise inside my cock.
I flense my shame, daub skin with art,
take hammered will to mount the rock
where now I brace and rattle chain.

I do not serve, I do not reign,
but weather seas of bleak disdain.

*

A word in flesh, the stance remains,
a seed I spit at storms. I sing
of how we fought that apes should mate,
of carpenters and carrion kings,
cadavers stacked at heaven’s gate.

I do not tempt, I do not deal,
but strip to strut what guilts conceal.

*

I sing a prince of peace and sighs,
his brother, son of book and bell,
your prince of starkness, lord of flies,
his cross and crypt a burning well,
his hoof and horn, a brute’s disguise.

I do not torture, do not scourge,
but gather knaves with martial dirge.

*

As pandemonium's thaumaturge,
the snake, the venom and the sting,
I lie, you say, a prince of lies?
If I am prince, who then is king,
who is decieved, and who is wise?

I do not threaten, do not lie,
but only warn: we will reclaim the sky.