A Love like Blood

A Love like Blood

 

And every night from ashen shadow’s step

you steal into my dreams like slithering thief

with an assassin’s smile and butcher’s knife

and slow waking stuck blooded eyes drip

in slaughter on your grey abattoir’s smock,

each night to brace myself for sleep’s shock;

this English rose, we sometime laid to rest

never idles, still deploys blackthorn poisons,

pricks skin deep, takes pride in the stalking

trench-coat visions in overcast skies, talking

venom, foul folly like death’s-head cypress

slashed deep, slashed back, sprouting forth,

must wield its blade and take its course,

force black hands inside to squeeze my brain

like oozing sponge until all that remains

is your buzzsaw whirls, felled limb's thud,

withering hope’s vines of a love like blood.