Everything Except Michelle I. I want to hear the charred thumping of high-caliber slugs Smashing angel bones and igniting feathers. I want to see their perfect, shining faces contorted In perfect, shining agony as their organs Each praising God Slide out under my terrible swift sword. I want to burn the City of God. I want to burn the City of God. II. My skin remembers her All Chicago smells like her hair Her body a paradox permitting no hypocrisy Did she have to die for me to know I loved her? Was it needful, her corpse laid out on The cruel examiner's table Perhaps he laughs or is disgusted Either way The Certificate of Death is a lie Sex: Male. That is what drags me into A sea of grief I think, not of afterlife, Not of death, but How cold How horribly cold How I could never warm her So cold. Found in a Toronto hotel With a stranger, holding hands A syzygy of suicide Pills and booze, so gentle and kind You cannot see the huge and monstrous Violence that has torn a good soul Left home at fifteen but Couldn't escape the hate and ignorance Nor the fear Demons now sated on her escaped breath. In a final insult Accidental genetic family claims her clay Her true kin have no grave to lay offerings on Only dead words like these. III. Wounded wrathful army of spirits All battle fatigues and machine guns Harrows Heaven We crash the gates St. Peter's blood stains the clouds Like a perfect sunset It's a slaughter, of course. But in this atmosphere every bit of carnage Is a work of art, Shattered bodies testifying to The Maker's craft, Like the beauty of smashed clocks. Eventually I find Him Seeing bearded man, lion-headed creature Philosophical point of light These guises cannot fool me I have beaten myself in a forge The blade quenched with tears that burn With her name on my lips Each time I asked "why," a grinding-stone Scraping away sensitive skin Honing bones to sharpness, preparing for this Then His love radiates out Pure love My trap is sprung This most evil of all lies ignites Me, I name him: Thou jailkeeper Thou murderer Thou rapist Thou artificer of deceit Ialdabaoth, Saklas! The sword of flame I have made of my soul Strikes from heart to heart I burn the City of God The fire at the center of the world is freed To consume the lying matter I burn and watch it burn The works of humans and nature Made into heat and light Perhaps souls return to some better place I do not care, I want it all gone, Everything that might recall the pain Of having loved her. IV. Now I am here, and the world remains Trundling on eternally uncaring The ultimate whore who will lie with anyone Willing to pay her insatiable price. All that remains is everything Except Michelle.