slow pursuit

The shame-flush is at my back again

like a great gray thing    like following

the deadI’m the same

barbarian sweating here for a century

white animals are a favorite

house of transmigrating souls

a negative space between two fires

yet my days are spent

lounging like a romana canon-

bore is a nest for birds

an unshapely divinity

kept burning by the faithful

in the image-houses

of your private silence

I see you slowly losing

your mindI don’t refuse it

white hot

Rice fields are a nicer postcard

of the parasite that caught me

or the ice-hole I tongued to cool

at the templea glass room filled

with the bones of the missingall

here smile toward the glassthe bones

in some kind of gesturemy god

demandsthe sun-colors saturate

voices from the heapthe dead drip

through the livingthe gods all

wear the same hat

I ate the lotus pod for the gods

demanded itI cracked

the pods on my forehead like the natives

dothey demanded

I move in the rainso I sit

the others grow wet

under the palm I consider

the palm has been used

to slit throatsI sit

hush

My musician blind or limb-

lessdo the feelings drag

harder for it

here art is so rare they call it Living

the high wet noise of economy

pitch of palm leaf along a throat

please don’t step on the bones

each wet season spits up

or keep as dark souvenir to prove

you recognizedo you

feel another’s pain in the palm of

your handdry & nearly weightless

the sea-light is especially full

drunkjust beneath the crash

drift all the things I fear

or the fearof nothingI gather

the dead things puffed up & nameless

as all the obvious fetishes

the cats gather at the switch

of the generator in hot dark lack

the trees slip awayall left a lapping

sea or the circle of fur

skin-met is the sound is the

sound is the sound  I stroke back

and hope

the sea-lights take shape as

I pay to watch a boy in his underwear

catch and end my dinner’s life

the light again goes limp

and I’m thankful for itmy name

becomes stranger every time

I say it   I’ve been convinced

of nothing but the mere fact of     listen

I’m sorryfor in my mind I reversed it

and you were deadwe all were

better for it

this is too close to the truthyet

still a shade of purple or the sigh

of a door with pressure applied

let’s call it pressureto be precise

I lay you downbreath-to-

breath I could make no demands

better people than us have

only kept in the fake-breathed days

we lived by the pulse of your damp vault

of course there was the snow-

muffle   chill of every basement’s

banality of boxes full of fuck-knows

for the Christmas ornaments were still

on the tree like a sick mirror of the word

I won’t writethe quiet between

your father and I as he moves carefully

through the sightless white guilt

of my own warm breath obscuring

the dark reflection

possession

I keep your word nearest

for the sun cannot but

pale even memory

does not reach    the bedroom nor

dingy white of        the window

cover

authenticity of living

in a constant wave of sullen protest

or the pulsing neon epiphany

just before the power fails

what of the young man

possessed        he’s given

amulets &        simple prayers

                          to cure

the young man eats

what’s placed before him

always

one night they say

on the beach the object appeared

with too much wine         amulet forgotten

in his shirt pocket             near to the beating-

thing which cannot pardon              so like the fade of the moon

for dawn           he went

to the water     I called him back     light broke