if we’re to meet again we’d meet
by the prickly pear under the red shadow –
don’t call it a dead land –
are we not devo? –
drugs won’t change you –
do you tell me all your secrets? –
and the truth you can’t handle? –
I sit in the bath on lysergic
pulling the wings off flies
putting the small black butts of their bodies
on my shaving mirror
where they form
words, we’d meet on tamped down
mud by leprous patches of dry grass
in the shadow of a dark tower –
in scribblage – running our cups along
the prisons of our ribs – grit
clinching the darkness – outside
the loop – stowing our terror
tools for the night – forgiving
what we have made, we’d meet in a dance piece
embracing through cheese cloth
called ‘Paradise’ – with a stop
watch orchestra – clusters of word
tones buzzing in the gallery –
coming and going – who knows
what new things
will be exposed? – on this unanimous night
the fashionable young
deride the importance of age – we are free –
free to dispose of our bodies – they fit
with a relief like a breath of fresh air –
like a window opening – the hot simoom –
unlike the heady Föhn
off the Panic peaks, we’d meet
in the as if – the blooded eye
of the red desert –
with blue shadows – a certain shade –
the chroma
key of lying
of forever – the same –
an endless wind through the open window
blows in wreckage upon wreckage – dust
sand grain on grain – don’t turn you head away
Angel – I can’t change you –
like a pylon connecting the provinces
to blackmarket reconstruction – all I ask is
look at what I’ve already forgiven – see
love – what I praise
