by Allister Nelson

“Yeshua stripped in the desert / was Caravaggio weaving light / out of shadow, lamb in sin.”

by Allister Nelson

“Bleed out slow, let old dreams flow / Like hourglass sand to depths below …”

by Allister Nelson

“Bleed out slow, let old dreams flow / Like hourglass sand to depths below …”

by Allister Nelson

“I wake up every day and want to die, / but in Hell, if you’re dead, where else / is there / to go?”

by Allister Nelson

“One must keep the fire burning, one must heat the poker. / And one is the flame-diver, dreaming / of snow.”

by Allister Nelson

“The Devil once said my soul was a black hurricane. /That every time I injured myself, I bled red gold.”

by Allister Nelson

“Little flower of Hell, where the clear creek / runs / …I go a witching down in the brine, digging / a stick through the mud.”

by Allister Nelson

“Raven rises from the bubbling concoction, / foul-winged and downy-chested with rain – / acid drips on the horizon.”

by Allister Nelson

“Washerwoman, sting with lye / Scrub away the exile, / Prince beneath, beneath the scale. / My binding is my wretchedness”

by Allister Nelson

“Gold were my days, when the long summer of my life / played out like reeds cut to form Pan’s pipe, a wild / child spread out across the meadows in quilted skirts.”

by Allister Nelson

“… caresses, phantom servants, a gauzy bed draped in silk where I spilled a single drop of wax.”

by Allister Nelson

“Mother never told me why flowers wither at frost’s first touch. / I watch my flesh crumble, I become the Bone Bride.”

by Allister Nelson

“The stars began to dance, like reflections in a pool. I gasped, watching as they mirrored the milk-white blooms. I plucked one, bringing it to my lips.”

by Allister Nelson

“Ophelia, Ophelia. / The men are not worth dying / For naught, to rot / Drift to the sea.”

by Allister Nelson

“When love is death and death is only / absolution, choose to fight, not sing”

by Allister Nelson

“the memory foams like a dream…”

by Allister Nelson

“Claws on my back, fangs at my throat. / Musk mixed with cologne and the ashes / of a pricey cigar. Rumination, ruin, these / plots of fallen angels with loss in between.”

by Allister Nelson

“There’s a gateway to heaven, a stairway to hell / my seal on your thigh to guide you well”

by Allister Nelson

“Grace! Asmodeus delights, in his girls and boys, in his den of inequity and sin, with wormwood drinks and time to think of red delicious wounds.”

by Allister Nelson

“twist and turn at a soc hop like it’s your / grandparent’s malt shop dream, sweet teeth, in me are leaves of / hauntings, and to fall from a sycamore and swing from an oak / is but the path of angels lit on fire with the coming Thanksgiving…”