Death sits between two birds
Its kingdom vast
Shade condones wings
Beaks are bowed in reverence
An even symmetry about them
Breezeless afternoon empty blue
Crooked necks soothsayer posture
Resting on their hunches
Fearless and grandiose
Awaiting dusk in the shade
Conversations in silence
Spread wings stench of violence
A top the brick roof
Of a church that has been decaying
Since the last millenium
Now the home of two king vultures
The well I am
The flow of me
The well I dream
The one I pretend to be
Permeates underground
Between sheets of rock
Grand boulders
That never see sunlight
Water I am
Water i pretend to be
Am I contaminated?
Am I clean?
Long since known my PH
Silt washes down stream into me
Will I come alive at it's minerals
Will I rise from the courses
Before each drop of me is dispersed into the sea
For now i inhabit this space inside this well
Where the bucket falls and rises each day
And takes more and mroe from me
Growing up I tried not to lose who I was
Part of it would be destroyed
A piece of me
But was it a great one
Or not so much
Was it something unique I lost
Or some aspect that could not survive
In a world of such grinding contrasts
A piece of me crushed and discarded
The years demand such sacrifices too
Time doesn't just run over us
It begs homage and offering
Thus We must give parts of ourselves away
To accompany the minutes and hours
Years and decades
Growing up I tried not to give too much away
But time takes it the way taxes fall off salary
When I accepted I was also blessed
That new pieces were coming and settling
So that I wouldn't ever be the same man I was
So that i would be the boy in the garden but the man over a city
In that essence time would make no negotiation
As if time itself wanted to see what I would become
Like the deal it had with fate fell through
The predictions all wrong
Satisfied with parts of myself I already gave
And yet fascinated with what I had chosen to keep for eternity
When I leave to seek the good final piece.
I come across the swamp edge where illusive creatures hide.
Then I come to Jamelun lane where the dark fruits come december.
Dead dog ditch where vultures frequently visit.
Then to the forbidden bridge where homeless and drifters sleep.
On the sand they would doze off and some would be dragged off.
In a random rainless flashflood that accumulated from miles away.
Their bodies never found and their existence never noticed to begin with.
After that is the fruitful dead end where the giant mulberry continues flowering.
The infected papaya and pitanga where small monkeys stray above nighborhood cats.
Where spider webs the size of small houses cross entire back sections.
The exuberant acerola and the stunted starfruit.
Along that street is the two mongruels one friendly on bitter.
Then I walk westward passing the twin coconuts.
Up to the empty sections for sale.
That good final piece.
Their thin feminine faces are from the knowing bones.
They have descended from tight skin, abilities honed.
They have the paleness and fine curly hair they linger and observe.
Powerful predatory women full of asassin fervor.
They can push through the complications and fickle weaknesses of men.
They fit through narrow gaps in destiny when they curve and bend.
Coming back and swinging their long blades gleefully.
They attack at speed dreamily.
Their clean spirits tranparent and glass like.
Their eyes are focused rifle sights.
Trigger clicks, blast rings, chamber explodes.
Hapless victim falls blood coloring the road.
when I come home I'll have something to prove
I'll be in that car everyone talks about on tour
When I come home I'll have the grace and the aura
People will line up in order to shake up my hand
I'll strut down the road like the latest in demand
Like the lord of the flies groomed and broomed
hatted and mattered, immune and attuned
I'll saunter carelessly whistling my tune
I'll flag down a limusine in my old village
And grant him the unbelievable privilege
Driving me inside the city as we cross it
I'll be in the height of local gossip
When i come home and pass through familiar streets
I'll see myself rejuvenated, my concerns depleted
I'll invent new expressions and slang for the filthy
Use razor sharp wit on those who think ill of me
I'll walk at the right angle and calm pace
Give the impression I never lose face
Turning in the wind
Seven sails in the snow flurries
The fury of the blizzard
The sea has frozen over thus
thirst... thirst
The shore was full of dreams before water became ice
the fury of the blizzard
The shape of the rock way under
large living shapes scrape their belly upon it
Easing their restlessness
at having no surface to breach any longer
The snow flurries join the whirlwinds
Flowing inside and outside of the coastal townships
The sky forming the scales of a cold serpent with seven gular folds
Crashing down through the blizzard
adding ice to ice layer upon layer
thirst ... thirst
Upon the land the thickness of the surface of ice will never crack
Never be penetrated and will form the glaciers
The flags of the seven nations pierced through from sharp hail
Tomorrow might not see
