He Wakes to Torture in His Heart

When love and hate are mixed in men, the hate

Takes over, slow as frost that grows on panes,

On window panes of love, like stained glass great

With holiness, or like a lack of stains

(Like Galahad in crystal etchings on

A sacred grail that crackles into shards).

The loveliness that should have been men’s dawn

In New Jerusalem, its boulevards

Of see-through gold reverberating with

The hope a beauty, beauty of the hope

That shimmers in the promises of myth,

Becomes the slickness on Inferno’s slope.

  You wish to sleep and dream together, both,

    But wake where hatred shatters every oath.

October 26, 2028