Animal of desire

 The light brown ground under these trees
damp almost orange hidden under fallen leaves
sticks and grass is the encolsure of the heart
A raw pasture for a thousand animals

each with a voice competing through one mouth
In the dry dusty and desolate naked roots sprawl
The throat attempts to utter one of the voices
The voice like the dog is ankle deep and stuck

in the soft clay at the base of this heart
each dog a person each person a dying voice
an attempt a pretend desire fleeing
then returning in panic

just to find itself mute
The ball is over
everyone has left
the clay floor sticky

A borrowed love for life leaves
the void has waited so long
people build a home in those empty wet clay hearts
everyone wants the same breed of lapdog

The heart an enclosure searching for the genuine article
often contented with 2nd hand ambitions
recommended wishes
invisible roads

From Kapiti to the Mantiquera

 Gleefully from your corner of the world rejoice
all clear mornings are given to me like currency
No expectation of cool blue beach competition
two story buildings smiling northward
inviting hurricanes from a place called summer

Witness the invisible seasons from here
from yonder see them dance themselves to death
In the shadows of a giant eel
A land I no longer know

the great winds that would put life back into my younger eyes
An eternity touching the branches of these trees
studying their contours and their rough or smoothness
Leaves to shelter the head from the frothing sun
fox lost on the flat sandy expanses

returning to the small undergrowth
to converse with myself
The hundred months inside the forest shade
Claim existence from a school of mullet 
shallow estuary pool

silence in superlative
life force rising beyond flesh
and forest
it's me

Yet the mountains house me here
their sticky afternoon greeting plumpen cottony cloud
as If for my personal satisfaction
what a nothing of a person contented by cloud you ask
what a nothing of a soul who abandoned his old home

The only beast to quieten me fully
is the immense Mantiquera
The shape of God
The contours obsequious to my eyes

Judge me with laughter
judge me with loud ridicule
From up there I see the world blink
Each vision a reservoir of fuel

In the voice of the valley

 The valley is mine the screech turned bellow
the declaration breathes out
from determined lungs and an impulse voicebox
from the familiar ground into the unknown skies

speaking now and slowly winding it down to a whisper
from the wonderful curves and architecture of my mouth
surprisingly being driven by my mind
such a living thing electric and imposing

Curious animals hidden from sight
Like my eyes behind the lids
Then opening to observe making sense of all
categorizing it all

I read the future of mankind in the bark of a tree
I saw the serenity of decades in falling drizzle

Port's end

 Into a ditch
at port's end
crumpled hat
three worn pennies

Materials being offloaded
frustrated dockmen bend and lunge
hurriedly working chaos on the planks
No order to the mess

Fighting to keep
the solids and liquids flowing
arriving and leaving
your senses

Those hundred wheels turning
as you dizzy across
strange coorful box labels
tightlipped supervisors

A new wave of obligation
disappointment and empathy
emulsion of oil across water
logistical doubts

The mists of midday

 Mist and whisper cusp of smmit
winding down and around the thousand protruding canopies
Engulfing the shady underhall of mountain forest
A humid reality a wash of steamy air meshing with the foliage
expressionless bark unspeakable 

the dripping of damp tree trunks tampering with the floor
leaves and twigs swinging down and resting
humidity comes up in barreling draughts
Howling on through like rush hour ghosts

moving on through transparent blankets
descending with afternoon overcasting
afternoon hallowed hibernation

Greyish ears my face goes numb
the jungle murmurs

The forest path a soup

You said nature has no use

 We will build a giant vacuum cleaner
To suck the mist off this mountain for you
so you can see yourself in your soccer jersey infantile and proud
simple minded and conventionally pathetic dullard clapping at a marvel movie

we will build a huge megaphone
So that you can scream your soccer team a loud
and sing your hymn out of tone and tune
Like an old useless tool redundant

we will build a panel to listen 
to all of your predictable solutions to life's million problems
each echoing your basic impulse whims 
it's like you got your family to sew a new womb over you

I'll get them to cut down these forests so we can build a mall for you
Burn away those pesky trees and animals 
so you can dress up and get on with your mindless consumption
popping out of the elevator like ignorant toast

We can build you a bubble skin for your ears
So you can't hear the many critics attack your blind ways outright
to protect your skin and family from the elements
we will bulldoze these mountains for you

A tunnel for your flash new conventional car
the prehistoric you in you screaming to be squashed
Subtle modes of gloating under the simplistic weave
The uncivilized state of your anguish served so hot across your face

Trick yourself Guanabara, deep in self deception

 Rough people are you awake???
you all who think life is carefree
slap your own face wake from your lie
A lie you have imposed on your very own world

I inconveniently remind you
the only way out is the hard way
As you try to pay half
cut in line
forge the signature

No shortcuts no discounts
no schemes or elaborate tactics
No trust therefore no future
No merit suave victimhood posing as a thug

because its one fucking exit
burn the sleeved card
drop the act
throw your hussle down

Abandon your jewelry
your drugs your lies your act
pretense of humility
intellectual void

Your well built illusions
medications to induce strong denial
locking yourself out and screaming for help
with the keys in your pocket

can we expose you further
is it comically possible
every little trick you hide
we see out here in the limelight

clear to the day
Flagrant and disgusting
tagged on your ear
tatooed on your face

A hillside to seek beauty

 Low growing herbs appear across the hillsides
Freckles across the rough and broken surfaces
waiting for an owner like those thousand dogs below
abandoned at some point by the deeply careless

negligence sculpted the hillside
desolation painted it grinning
beauty took potshots here and there
angles, corners personal moments

Beauty sought not proven to exist
None wonder why beauty is chased
even on these mountains it attempts to escape
eyes and legs approach

Moving as the cloud flows
as the lizard twitches and signals
Glistening rock can this be beauty
not just an appearance

Rounded tops

 Flat mountain faces protruding shamelessly elongated on purpose
crying against the humid immensity occupying the dark mass of rock
summer bombarded by thick cloudful mornings

The rock itself alive with the shimmer of moisture
that some pre midday shard of light illuminates
Begging for evergreens to establish themselves up it's peaks
To hide themselves from the uncertain extremes

Those mountains talk to the sky in solemn request
whining as the human ants climb
Bald areas once lush and enticing 
Impacted by the fires of negligence

The springs two directions

 The spring on the mountain went two seperate directions
colonists on both side of the mountain tried to control the spring from it's source
Each time they tried to build the two creeks into one 
So that the entirety of the spring water would flow down their side of the mountain

Two groups who turned out to steal the water for their own people
insisting on controling that flow and then the would rest
Alas everytime each group built their wooden braces and new trenches
The opposing families would destroy it all and build their one

insisting on this strange insanity for a century
That pale clear water that would sustain their people
Their million hours climbing the mountain
To destroy and rebuild

To never question
To use resources and energy for nothing
The slow idiotic development of honor
Neither side were able to get enough of anything