Faith apart

Of these sacred platitudes
the blues are only shades of changing skies.
Shadows are cast by pregnant clouds
raining down in narrow spaces.
Caught between the devil
and the deep blue sea,
stranded in the ugliness
of an ancient trick - it’s time to

say goodbye to the stained grey sheets and
travel the backstreets and narrow alleyways,
answering to the lover
who unlocks, unveils and displays
the beat others kick away.

It’s also a time to feed the mocking faces
with expressions of sinewed modesty;
to tell these epiphanies
of righteous loathing,
which only saints can take credit for and
to pull and twist and dig
for the blood-filled verse
that courses through a placid hymn

And finally it’s the time to abandon the fairy tale speck of faith,
leaving it to be chipped and charred, churchlike.