The Sirens Call: The Life Sentence

My poem The Life Sentence¹ was published in the Spring 2023 issue (issue 61) of The Sirens Call eZine^[↗].

My spirit squirms within the void It swims toward the only light
A warmth from crevice razor-thin
Embrace that hope which shines so bright

The gates of heaven come to reach
Before I pass the holy door
I stop and shudder at the task
Confess thy dark and rotten core

Their whispers do subside at once
Though why do they around me kneel?
With sacred ones, I cannot be
if ache of soma I must feel

Those dressed in white are all just man
My heart is beating in relief
Their arms in welcome forth they throw
A second youth shall I receive

Yet skill of thought I can’t recall
Nor could I feel a mother’s womb
The sawbones, just like angels, might
have caught my soul above the tomb

But ’tis a hood and not a gown
A dozen flames must squirm on wicks
with eerie chants from fiends around
as Beelzebub performs his tricks

My wrath through veins like acid boils
This godless crime has sealed their fate
My hands enclose the serpent’s throat
The screams in silence suffocate

A ghoul within a pentagram
the occultists around had slain
The living world does scourge its soul
For limbo now it yearns again