an elaborate theater
inside tent

wolves suckled me
taught me manners

all appropriate now
that’s understood

(while you're whispering
under breath
whether its true

watch movement
away from you)

qualities developed
essential for survival

in entering world
mind cultivated
for purposes beyond
demand all
but gone

not prepared
to paint temptation

act i've got
strength
resisting memory

hardest measure
taken

fear
for facts

fixed
frugal

century
leave us
little

to believe
make myth

dibbûkim
doubtful

wonder
at wires

veins
negotiate
separate peace

boats fall
off edge
of
world

plotted on map

before boundaries
weep

miss it
entirely

wander in corridors
just staying
just

just
run

time
let me go
back to time

(hospital recovering
from overdose
failed attempt
that wasn’t serious
as i thought

requiring respite
perhaps pursuing storm)

leaves
fallen angel
breath in den

serpent or sun

time
locate line

to mind
i credit nothing
other than endurance

perhaps even stamina

with other qualities
seen in museum

which is more
than can be
said

for this art
sacrifices everything
for nothing

if i'm buddhist
i am one
immolating himself
outside u.s. embassy
saigon
nineteen sixty eight

working it out
as he sings

another story slip
voice breaks

heart gone

mind a given

mathematics of hope
extinguished

as troops
turned on hose

washing intentions away
into ancient seas
of ebony

swim tides

coming

place calipers around
legs

take measurement

hope
for best
in fortification

hope
in hell

hell
hopes

little less
than expected

form of flight

figures
still
sustain
sadness

grow wild
in winds

complaints of circle

always alone
assuming answer

memorized
from figures drawn
in sand

guardians noticing
faces in street

remember
scars

still

thorax
thread
to tribe

forgotten

exact date
for chronologies

architects of annihilation

epiphany
for executioners

come later
learn

so cruelly

way you'd describe
animals
horses especially

meet men
who miss
almost nothing

at all times
good student prepared

start again time

choose
salute ancient

sun
run

gathers
procession

memory
in prophecy
kept in trunk

for secrets
ghosts go
to shadows
on
foot

path
& wall

basis of basis

arrange flowers
in ash

too many treasures
leave

for another destination
these times
speech
less

go across ice

ghosts
speak their lines

wash skin
in ice

forgotten
etched in memory's
carnival

waits

imagining fortunes
which you're not
part segment particle

within that scenario
you're past
time

no one notices
history metaphor

facts a fiction
to be trampled

on this night
hold head

wondering how
it works

(that's a surprise
didn't expect
to last distance
so longed for)
create ceremony

beautiful carnage

forced to speak
in old tongue

comes in useful

primitive
watching from aquarium
conjuring dispatches
from epidemic

suggestions from somnambulist
climbing canticles
in cave

alphabet totalizations
taking on task

enter here
& now

leave oars
on beach

let boat
take me out
to where waters
encircle

& drown
burning nights
into formula

compounding chemistry
heart & mind

dual opposites
working it out
tired i turn
into a dictionary
making myself
feel at home
thousands of miles
away in another
time & place

everybody's suffering amnesia
everybody's going backwards

commonplace
& conceptual
in this climate

put photos
in fire

return to premonition

maintain
hunger necessary condition

force to be
reckoned with dialectics

simple theory
tool used now

can't use clairvoyance
though they visit
regularly
to check details
littered all over
room i rent
in antartica

waiting for you
to return

with absence promised
to hand over
in that treaty

we agreed to
never think
about each other
again

& i've kept that
promise

spoken in sense
that breath breathed

thinking thought

& that clear
shattering glass

labor learnt
at refinery

find fuel

limbs
familiar

come
become

carve
mighty god of
vengeance

wait for Messenger

hand in hand
near river

drown
in torrent
tuned by tongue

turning

wind
cannot remember

your name synonymous
with discoveries
made outside skin

built without invention
reconstituted in her

now sculpted
in dread

knowing perfect flesh
a given perhaps

reality matched
with vapor
left by dream

accepting lost hours
spent in interior

on what was
once
described as pilgrimage
with regret

less honorable
circles i drank
with abandoned souls

buying me
with stories
& a drink
poured over this
perfect flesh

so clean
brush myself
naked against mirror

no blemish
can be seen
from inside

gather guardians
of secret

(though they haven't
words to say
this difficult
enough in song

you knew
i couldn't sing
when you placed
me under shower)

prayed
with arrogance

someone whose lost
memory on shelf
with papers
photographs
& drawings

collect to remember
which day followed
night always followed
me in morning

so tired
sleep
most days

every night
you hear whispers

not able
to tell

whole story
making out

you move on
to where

you took off
dress so beautiful
wanted to wrap
it around my head
like a turban
holding in all
lies i'd tell

remember selling fish
with men
called family
outside in rain

we fucked
like they do
in films
so bad
you prefer watching

these words unusual
even in speech
they have character
pontious giving judas
coins handed over
counter there's calendar
with your face
on it

they've marked days
laid on bed

carrying out resurrection
not so common

these days
full of you

there are laws
of physics geometry
of determined positions

there are equations

certainly follow tribe
down river
seeking hut
where you were
last observed
with phonograph recordings
of this voice

hearing only details
understanding little

except this
what goes up
must come down

language drips
from sullen lips
passing through
corridor

remember the ships
falling off edge
of world

wherever that is
spending time
with sailors
interpreting signals
sent from boat
in center
of ocean

twirling
endlessly away
from us

when you know
there is nowhere
to fall obsolete

you begin walking
as she did
to aircraft waiting
for her to leave
destinations across sea
perhaps across land

ending
up homeless

wherever she is
i still am

gone
other
side by side

march
without word

wind
following footsteps
within these bones

there are countries
you’ve never been
or seen inhabitants

inferno
you keep fueling

today
& yesterday
uncertain
about a tomorrow

somewhere in gutter
cleaning
mementos

secrets

time

take one look
& tear this
heart from hell

weep
in garden