my vaunted purity of heart

I think it's that
I so long ago embraced
all the well-known nastiness within me
and reduced it to a series of toys

a line of action figures
produced in connection with some
particularly-despicable cartoon

one catches my eye now and then
and I'll grab it with a bunch of the others
and knock around with them a bit,

keenly conscious

of the childishness, which it is. In
the full flowing stream of life, though

I've utterly detached the sexual sadism
I never actually had
but had heard about, and it sounded like
people not kidding. So I thought

jeepers

that must be something in humanity
and I am one! So I added it forthwith
to my collection of action figures

and it beat up and fucked all the other
neglected toys quite handily. It was painful to see
yet oddly satisfying. Now I get it! I cried

and promptly detached it from more virtuous
urges of lust and devotion, clean
and wholesome

and it's been quite ridiculous ever since. Purity
is achieved in a kiln, a crucible

where impurities are burned away, leaving
that taste. And the ore that went in
is not what comes out. It is

refined, somehow. Into

pure what?

Let's find out! Chuck another lump of ore
in, while we bang and shape this red-hot stuff

into cups, swords and spades -
tools, playthings and such.

There is much need
for such hot, sweaty work
as we all draw forth
what we are from this earth.