Thirteen Lines
A song in word-music.

Love sent you to the desert’s hush-parched silence.

You held fast, though those rattling serpent-words

You heard hissed ‘Arrogance.  Omnipotence,’

Augmenting the fourth line with discordant violence.

The angel-song, the music of the spheres

You left, for stinging slash and singing pain

Of lashes; a thorn halo hallows your head,

Vice-like; your pierced side holds your sceptre-spear.

What passion.  High and clear and far, the song

Called you; in triune harmony you ascended.

Amended death.  I wish I could be faithful.

Lover, brother, I have done you wrong.

Only an infidel writes thirteen lines.