Bonus Post: The Spirit of Pure Flame

Final draft completed on 10/27/2013. Poems about fire seem to be a thing here in the Brass Bull--I wonder why.

This is what You promised:
That this flesh, in all its aspects—
Its desires, dreams, and strivings;
Its proclivities and overreachings;
Its sad empty yearnings for a touch
That cannot be refused—would be redeemed.

Impossible, this prospect, for such broken vessels
As we are, we know well, to contain;
So, we hope instead, and keep
What distance we can manage
From the pain that rises, tide-like,
At such promised providence.

Myself, I begged You earnestly and often
For a stripping down and shattering:
And You oblige, though my propensity
To hide, distract, myself from You
Is hard to fight—and harder still
To have burned out of me.

So still, I beg to be redeemed:
To be burned, purged, and purified
Becomes my only hope—
Though, strangely, in this process
Each desire purifies, increases,
And is not destroyed…