End of the Tour
newspoem 22 March 2008
he had opened an ambiguity
a rift of circumstance
he was not really president
it wasn’t the president’s job he was doing
he gave me a rod sheathed in leather
a gunmetal cylinder with the scent of licorice
a plane ticket with no return date
the monument had pinned the shards of stone
when upended it caused a fractured dissolution in the demographic mosaic
a shrapnel of antiquity
feud bulbs bubble up
subjected to microwave radiation
in the relentless sinister spring sunshine
a wavering fume bespoke a deadly nuisance
a wired bridge never trust a vehicle
the rattling pterodactal shook loose a daisycutter
with an inhalation we saw a bag stiffen
sleep is not allowed to anybody in the zone for the duration
by the time the exploded carbomb has been reassembled stateside
a media screen has bleached the bloodspots
filtered the sweaty hungry desperate anger from its construction
it merely was factoid X
a linguistic equation
anything can equal anything if stubborn enough
twelve troops on patrol running a ratmaze
falling into a well of night
a hypnotic undertone to the undertaker's requiem
static clouds the goggles
I can't fire haphazardly into a blinding desert
adding light
heat to light
heat
they won't wait for the rich to bail us out
the purple sun is moldy
green in the skies of static
the whole desert has poor reception
as if not really here
not who I was
a copy of an outline
insides scissored away
repenciled in with speed
dirt
there is not a grenade I wish to sling
yet belts rattle with the weight of metal testes that terminate pregnancies
this is the other side of rhetoric
we have passed through the word liberation to see that it is insensible when viewed from behind
here an unfamiliar alphabet suggests exotic mistruths
a mystical justification for violence
runes scribbled on history
something that makes profound sense because it is not understood
the misery has risen
lifting all boats
stripped of rationale
following orders is grit in the cortex
when will we find time to peel those pearls back into dirt
there is a certain pressure to rape
kill
with that I try harder
having seen the godlike power of air assault
I have less than a halfpercent chance of making a sensible call
at night I dream of ice cream record stores
skateboarding a laptop down telegraph avenues
there is not a flower in this land
I've brought the tourniquet I use to lash the brain
the bayonet I use to pierce it
because every bullet I steer into another’s flesh wounds me because I am everybody
I have but one drop of spit I hoard in my boot
by day we make a bulls-eye
at night we lie in it
metal corners
air-conditioned grease
there is a big game here
we are playing or being played
atrocities later
we examine our soles to see what blood we might be
impale this sand with our lies
claiming it for anachronism
erect a previous century on the bones left by our subtraction problem
repeat it until they believe it
over until finally it has faded away like the smell of hum
we
our remorse
our engines
all inextricable
a concentration of fear
hurt
film
these minds will never know school
having seen these wonders
smoketrails
blood fertilizing the dead sand
or dead dirt rising through osmosis to clot our blood to gravel
hypocrisy is a skyscraper
also godlike in its stunning ambivalence to its own directives
language has come unraveled see
so the starburned retina is a vomit of images
a flow of nonsense
we have stripes
stars stuck in the helmet liners
a coughdrop or lozenge in a royal palace now humming with the light of Pepsi machines
let those slackluster compatriots drop like ice cream cones onto a mezzanine littered without purpose
because this my diety is ready
uranium shell breakfast debutante
let him in on a glimpse of spectacularly bad juju
break in that face so full of fresh flies
promise
overturned market
draining
fruit
vegetable stands
stalls
careens
falls
the only truths behind your eyelids when you no longer know you're dying
into that space you go
a gloom of cold
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